Such a simple idea. Now with better materials and a dramatically lower price!
Your doors are held closed by the latch, but they're locked into place with a bracket that slides over a rubber bushing. That makes it easy to align everything, but it means the connection isn't as strong as it could be. In a convertible, the doors provide a surprising amount of structural rigidity if they're properly anchored.
These replace the soft rubber door bushings with a stiff, injection moulded, fiberglass-reinforced nylon replacement. The door is solidly locked into place, allowing it to reinforce the chassis. The effect is of a stiffer car with fewer squeaks. We have measured a 3% improvement in torsional rigidity on a 1990.
This is our second generation design, which is now made out of fiberglass-reinforced Zytel nylon resin from DuPont, which makes it even better than the old version. How much better?
- 3x stronger (tensile stress)
- 6.5x less stretch (tensile strain)
- 1.5x more resistant to bending (flexural modulus)
- 39x better impact resistance (notched Izod impact test)
And just like our previous version, it has good chemical resistance.
In other words, they'll survive for a long time without being treated gently. Like our first generation, the bushing is taller to give 36% more overlap with the door cup. More overlap = less deflection = stiffer car. And on top of all that, they're half the cost of the previous design!