Microbus3

07 June 2000: The tub of the VW was cut to fit to the shifted position.
The recesses for B-pillars were cut and the assembly checked to fit properly.
The rear part of the internal floor was cut from styrene sheet to tailor-fit the VW chassis.
Now the big "invention". After thinking for about three days, it suddenly occured to me that I could use the zipper of nylon refrigerator bags as the slider rails of the rear doors. An immediate response resulted as the picture. I machined a brass wire to suit the zipper profile and that was it. This part will rest under the floor to guide the lower part of the door.
08 June 2000: The two lower rails are glued under the rear floor.
10 June 2000: Now for the upper rails. A recess to take the nylon zipper had to be carved in the plastic. I did that by putting a brass wire on the plastic and heated it with my soldering iron. The hot wire got buried in the plastic and was removed after cooling down.
This is how it loks like after the wire is removed. The edges were filed and sanded afterwards.
The rearmost upper traverse was made from three layers of styrene and glued in place.
19 June 2000: The recess did not prove to be enough for proper hiding of the rails, so the place was fully cut out so that some inner frame holding the rails would be glued at the back side.
And these are the upper rails glued to their holding frames by superglue. The tops will be closed after this pic.
The upper rails are fixed to the body at the holding frames.
The ends of the rails are glued in the recesses with superglue.
29 June 2000: But then, there occured operational disaster!! The door was too tempted to go off the plastic rails, especially the top one. So I changed the design and carved out the new guide contour on the upper plate of the -now old- rails.
A new door was cut from 0.8 mm brass sheet and fit to the body curve.
1 mm diameter brass rods with turned tips were soldered on the appropriate points of the door.
And a U-bracket was cut and bent from 0.8 mm brass sheet and 1 mm diameter holes were drilled across the bracket. The bracket then was soldered to the door.