Broncobra- "Sport door inserts"
I'm a fan of Broncos, any model & have owned early, B2 & full size. One of my favorite variations for the early model was the removable door and the fiberglass sport door insert that really smoothed out the profile of the Bronc with it's doors off. When I first started thinking about the look that I wanted in my B2 roadster the Sport door was one of the top 3 features that it had to have...along with a powerful V8 and duarable drive train specifically set up for desert running.
Before cutting the door I taped the contour pattern with painters tape (several times) to get the right "look" and then lightly sprayed the area with Krylon. Then I cut it out with a sawzall and dressed the edges with a cylindric shaped pipefitters grindstone mounted on the arbor of a 4" angle grinder. These stones are not expensive and will dress up some of the worst examples of incompetent cutting with saw, torch or whatever known to man. I know because some of those were made by me.
The photo above shows that first cut.
I left the doors on their hinges and latches, and also attached them with multiple self tapping screws. I left the forward door post attached to the A column because at this point I wanted them to help support the windshield (it had not yet been capped and strengthened across the top) these post were also attached to the A column with heavy self tappers.
As you can see from the 1st. picture above the results were definitely ugly and it only gets worse, you should have seen the looks on faces as people entered my shop and saw what I had done to a perfectly good Bronco (as some described it). Oh well eggs have to be broken in order to serve breakfast. lol
I filled the door cavities with foam and let harden...trimmed the foam with a large knife and smoothed with a grinder to form a uniform surface, then applied several layer of resin and glass. After it cured I topped the fiberglass with several coats of bedliner and let that cure.
By this time you should realize that I was serious about these doors never becoming a problem and yes i did think about removal of doors or fenders for repair and I inserted access points to bolts, latches, screws and hinges through all the glass etc.
There is a front half and a back half for each door opening and they meet in the middle. The caps are attached to the inside panel of the door with self tapping sheet metal screws, this inner panel goes all the way to the bottom of the door. The outside edge over laps the exterior door skin and follows the contours of the body and door opening. Not shown is the scuff plate that will be attached to join the two halves and dress up/protect and further strengthen the door "insert". I wanted a door that a 500 lb. Gorilla could stand on, heck jump up and down on and not piss me off cause I didn't build it strong enough to take the abuse. Early Bronco owners have to remind everone not to stand on the door inserts when climbing in and out...I'm not going to worry about it!
The tailgate cutout was fabricated in basically the same way but it uses a three piece construction, mainly because of the length involved and I didn't have the strength of steel to attach it to (liftgate is fiberglass and once the plastic interior trim is removed there isn't even a good flat surface to mount to ...so I attached a flat quarter inch think aluminum diamond plate panel to the inside of the lift gate. Then I had a good looking, strong surface to mount to. I painted the diamond plate black. The bars, lights and spare rim are the only items of chrome or polished aluminum in the interior.
