Chevy & GMC Vans

I have always hated the way that the rear door hinges stick out our vans, so in my quest to achieve "ultimate smooothness" they had to get shaved. I also wanted to weld my lower Dutch Doors closed for an extra smoooth look, because when I`m towing my jetskiis or dunebuggie I can`t open them anyway, with a hitch attached.

































The doors are just tack welded at this stage. Stay tuned more to follow......

Good to see you doing somemore body mods on the van Darren,lookin forward to the pics

I've thought about welding the doors together and making them into something like a tailgate.

89AstroDan wrote:I've thought about welding the doors together and making them into something like a tailgate.

Because of the curve in the rear doors this will be very difficuilt.... not impossible, but a huge phat pain in the ass unless you have major metal-fab skillz......

Glad to see you working on the van again. That's definitly going to look good.

You go boy. Lookin good from the south side Darren.

so if you were to just perfect welding the 2 doors, and then set up something like a tailgate system, having it shut so you wouldnt need to modify any thing but the tailgate hinge system in the bottom corners, and the latch in the top corners, it would be very difficult? is it just the welding the 2 doors together thats difficult or... ?

what exactly are you doing to your doors??

Looking good, I was just wondering if you have been making any more mods to your van.

Corey, have a look at the tailgate of a truck, the area of pivot is actually located below the level of the bed, that way when the tailgate is dropped the bed and the tailgate are on the same plane which allows lumber (longer than 8ft for instance ) to be stacked laying on top of the tailgate and there is no bump up where the tailgate begins ( you following,lol ) the thickness of the tailgate determines the drop for the tailgate to sit in,the fact that the astro doors are slightly curved accentuates an even deeper drop needed which simply does not exist in the 1st place, what appears to be a fairly simple mod becomes as Darrens says a major PITA, without some major fab skills.

Thankyou for explaining that Zam....

ohh. i see. so then what other options are there? / what is darren doing?

smooth bum darren,
Awesome

lookin' good cali!

did anyone ever find out which hinges worked when reversed to hide them from sticking out and still having the doors function as intended? i know there was some talk about it on the old forum...don't know what happened with that thread.....

man you folks are all sounding like Peter.....................going gaga over Darren's back side.

looks good the hinges are a pain I was going to do the hidden hinge deal but my Caddy lights were to deep so I just welded the bottom shut who needs a door away.LOL