Suicide door hinges

[kgmunro]

If a guy wants to put suicide door hinge setup on a 51 chevy truck ...has anyone seen a kit or is it something you have to fabricate yourself?

[mr48chev]

There are several kits out there that will work. I used the stock hinges from a junk cab and swapped the whole panel with hinges from side to side. Left side to right rear and so forth. I used the panels out of another pair of junk doors to get the inside pieces but made a few mistakes in the process and have never been able to get glass in the doors.

I did this setup in 1981 and it has worked great ever since except for the window issue. On that you have to make sure that you don't intrude on the space that the windows need and you should be good. I'm building a new cab for the truck now and will address that issue when I do the doors.

[ratrodmiller]

thats how i suicided my doors on the 52 , just swaped the hinge pilar from left to right . i used a donor cab, also the doors are 1947 one piece which made for easier install for the glass , also had to convert to power windows .

[panelrodder81]

LMC truck also makes a replacement panel for the hinges side of the jam if you don't have an extra cab to cut up. The panel comes complete with pockets. I was considering this as an option since I don't have an extra cab and the though of cutting out my originals just to put them in the opposite side freaked me right out!

Originally though I tried the AutoLoc kit. Nice kit but it didn't work since the hinge pivot point wasn't close enough to the outter skin of the truck. I cut them out and tried adjusting their position and could never get them right without moving the entire pocket into the area of the jam where the rubber seal on the door seals to. And since I wasn't willing to jeopardize the weather seal area on the truck I ended up just bailing on the idea... I'd wasted to much time and money on it to continue.