This week I was fortunate to meet one of the guys in my Facebook bus group, who has the same kind of Isuzu bus as mine (with a virtually identical door) and has successfully modified the way the door on his bus is hinged so it now opens fully outward.
He did it using heavy duty truck hinges, and was kind enough to let me visit his home to see exactly how he did it.
It is exactly what I would like to try and do with the door on my bus and seeing that he has managed to do it, gives me a little more confidence that I can too.
But before I can even start to look at re-hanging my door, there is a lot of work to be done to clean it up and do some repairs.
I had initially only planned to remove the old seals, the two door locks, and the inside laminate panel lining. That in itself was a big enough task, but I soon realised as I began stripping the door, that the frame inside was quite rusty. There was even water sitting in one of the cavities inside!! So I needed to also remove the windows AND the outer metal skin as well if I was going to be able to properly treat the rust.
So, I ended up completely stripping the door down to the bare steel frame! It was a massive job and took me several days.
This was the end result – not much left of the original door now!
