Sliding doors

 The Iveco daily III sliding door is designed to not close properly and generally look crap. It is worth acknowledging that this has taken effort to make something this bad and we should all be grateful that it gives us the opportunity to waste hours trying to rig it properly.

fig1
I have spent hours on and off faffing with the sliding door.
I was clearly not the first as the van came with a new door latch, a couple of pin cavities and a gutter had been fit above the door. The gutter is a great work around for a leaky door regardless of fit.

A fair bit can be achieved with the rigging available in the door which I will give a quick overview of here.

The door adjustments available are as follows:

Forward upper arm - extend retract via pinch bolt.

Forward lower arm - raise/lower front edge via 3x mounting bolts and a small amount of adjustment via 2x arm attachment cap head bolts.

Forward pin cavities - move to accept door pins by loosening 2x bolts.

Aft latch pin upper - loosen pin with 13mm DD socket and align to pull in aft upper corner.

Aft latch pin centre - adjustment to align with door latch.

All of the electrical contacts can also be adjusted for alignment.

Any adjustment in rig will generally cause the diagonal opposite corner to do the opposite of whatever you are adjusting. As a rule, you want the upper edge tight at the cost of the lower as water tends to run down the van more than it is splashed up.

Where adjustment doesn't succeed, P seal can fill the gap. Often supplied on 3m tape, this stuff can be a big help. A bit of silicone sealant on the ends can help prevent it lifting over time, keeping things tidy.

When I first acquired the van the door alignments was so bad that the contacts for the lighting and central locking didn't even align. With a bit of a lube and rigging I was able to achieve the fit in fig1.  This was usable but I did want a bit better.

Although I had cleaned and lubricated the runners, on later inspection I noticed that the forward lower arm I have fitted is for a later mk IV and after (the wheels are smaller and there is a little scraper at the front) but also the nylon tyre was missing off of the bottom wheel causing the front to be sat low even at full adjustment. A check of eBay showed that the later arms were being sold as mk III fit so buying a new one would not solve my issue. A replacement wheel set is only a fiver is a sensible idea but I am; 1 stingy, 2 a hater of waste and 3 own a 3d printer.

fig2.1 nylon wheel on petg raft.


A few measurements, 10 minutes of fusion 360 and another 17 printing later had a new nylon tyre printed.

The whole arm was caked in grease and pubes so a trip to the degreaser bath was needed. 

I had designed the wheel to be a tight fit so I fettled it till a tight push fit could be achieved. A thin bead of super glue and a very tight fit should keep the wheel on  which was squeezed on with a set of parallel jaw pliers.  

fig2.2 fresh tyre.


The wheels were then well lubed with lithium grease and slapped back together with a couple of thick washers set between the two arms to give a little more height.

All of this effort succeeded in making a barely noticeable difference in the front edge fit. It was more noticeable inside the door where all of the latch cups needed adjusting to meet the new position.

Baby steps will no doubt continue where the door needs to come further forward in order for the forward lower corner to pull in at which point the upper corner will need to come out to facilitate this. At least the forward edge gap is finally parallel if a bit big.

fig 3





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FAULT - Speedo not working for first few miles

Image
This is a fault diagnosis blog entry for my IVECO Daily Mk3 35S12 2.3 XLWB. I present them in a set way so that f you have the same symptom you can find my fix for that problem.  It is formatted in three sections  Fault Symptom, Fault Invest  &  Fault Fix.  This will give you the freedom to read through or pick out the info you need more easily. Remember: there is no one one answer to each problem (well not often) so although this might have fixed my problem, that isn't to say it will fix yours. Also I am no subject matter expert so I may not know a system to the highest detail.  Fault Symptom Van cranks and runs fine with all electrical systems working. Speedo may initially work, may not, either way it intermittently drops out and comes back or may be off for long periods. During this time cruise control does work but will be canceled whenever the speedo turns on or off. If the speedo is off for a long period, it is often joined by an injector warning light. The clock
Read more

USB power

Image
This van has a peculiar lack of power outlets. There is 1 12V DC cigar lighter socket at the drivers position and a few 240V AC sockets in the rear, 2 of which are hidden in cupboards. This was particularly annoying when you need to charge your phones at night or keep said phones topped up whilst driving with one socket. A first step in sorting this out was to add a twin 1.5A USB charging socket to the rear of the van. I wasn't sure where yet but a bit of time spent looking about for a suitable spot brought me to the sofa bed. It has an arm rest behind the drivers seat where there is ample space for a power socket or three and is near to easy accessed power. The other benefit of this location is that it is easily accessed from the driving or living compartments. Out came my hole cutting set which I used to cut a 35mm hole for the socket body to sit into. This piece of ply wood I was drilling is crazy thick, about 2" in fact! It took me two attempts to get through it wit
Read more

FAULT - Hand brake light flashing on whilst driving

Image
This is a fault diagnosis blog entry for my IVECO Daily Mk3 35S12 2.3 XLWB. I present them in a set way so that f you have the same symptom you can find my fix for that problem.  It is formatted in three sections  Fault Symptom, Fault Invest  &  Fault Fix.  This will give you the freedom to read through or pick out the info you need more easily. Remember: there is no one one answer to each problem (well not often) so although this might have fixed my problem, that isn't to say it will fix yours. Also I am no subject matter expert so I may not know a system to the highest detail.  Fault Sypmptom Whilst driving the van the hand brake light will flicker on after a while. Pushing the handbrake handle brake down will turn the light off for it to come back on again a short while later.  Fault Invest Not much going on here. My fist suspicion was the hand brake micro switch. I checked it out for adjustment and condition. I found the switch full of horse hair and the arm b
Read more