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HybridZ

Anyone have shaved door handles and lights


Scott_M67

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what happens if your car batery takes crap?

 

Just run a heavy cable from the positive to behind your bumper, covered with a rubber protector and have a bolt or tow hook left unpainted for the neg, that way you can just hook up another cars battery to the contacts to provide the juice to unlock the doors.

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I though about the same issue, but i often i drive around and to remote places, no one around to jump me :P. I was thinking a hidden door in the fender well with a cable to unlatch the doors. Could even put a hasp from a locking gas door for added security.

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I shaved the handles on my z in 2003. The system worked great...

about 50 times. Completely my fault. The heavy duty 50lb solenoids were just not strong enough to cope with the way i installed them, coupled with really old and completely unserviced latches.

 

I eventually left a long hooked peice of metal in the hatch area, that i used to hook the inner door handle from the back. Climbing in through the hatch makes you look and feel very stupid for shaving your door handles off... Like "Look what I can do!". Genius.

 

I would also sometimes reach in the window and rool it up as far as i could with my arm still inside, and then take the window handle with me... Is that a window crank in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? I took a lot of crap about the whole deal from my fellow wyotech classmates.

 

It really was funny. Now.

 

Anyhow. Moral of the story is. Replace, or refresh your door hardware. I do plan to do it again, correctly. I plan on using autoloc door latches with the solenoid built into them. And I have a few ideas for making sure I will be able to manually release them. Thinking of a keyed release under the gas cap for the passenger door. This is all way in the future for the project.

 

Joe

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Yup, there's my baby. I have a brand new rear-mounted gel battery, so i've never had a problem with the battery going bad. When I bought the car though, it had a dinky standard battery, which didnt work very well. However, the solenoid for the door use so little power that even when I left the lights on through an 8-hour workday and they were just that faint orange, barely can tell they are on, the door opened up just fine. The battery on the remote is a different story, but you can tell that it is getting low when your range shortens.

 

As I am rebuilding my Z, I am going to be putting a solenoid in the passenger door too, activated by a button on the center console. (Leaning across to open the passenger door is a little lame). I am also going to use same-pole magnets in the door frame to make the doors pop out further, and I plan to have a magnetically controlled relay hidden in the door so I can waive a small magnetic "key" to activate the solenoid. The "key" is also going to activate a hidden ignition switch inside the car.

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Most newer cars have something like a residual power pack. It basically holds enough voltage to release airbags in case an accident disabled the battery and you might still need the airbag to go off. I think it will also run the power windows, but not sure about that. But something like that could still power the solenoid in your doors.

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iceman, i just realized that your rear bodyline is down lower than the door? not to bash on you or anything, thats alot of work for a smoothfinish...

 

im still concerned about having a batery giving up on me somewhere and sitting outside for some time for a nice person to offer a jum.

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When I shaved my handles I ran a manual cable for the passenger side through into the engine compartment. The cable termminates with a loop pull in the area where the battery originally sat. I run a fiberglass hood and use a single hood pin in place of the original latch. Access to the engine compartment is available if the battery does dead so then I can open the passenger door.

 

Bill

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When I shaved my handles I ran a manual cable for the passenger side through into the engine compartment. The cable termminates with a loop pull in the area where the battery originally sat. I run a fiberglass hood and use a single hood pin in place of the original latch. Access to the engine compartment is available if the battery does dead so then I can open the passenger door.

 

Bill

 

I have a very similar set-up on the '70 Chev truck that I work on/play with (belongs to my Grandfather, at least it's his name on the ownership LOL).

 

We used a hood release cable, ran it and because the hood release cable had a nice mounting flange at the pull, we mounted it in a semi-hidden spot.

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  • 3 months later...

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