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Shaved door handles

Laddy

Well-Known Member
Joined
February 7, 2004
Messages
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City, State
Texas
Year, Model & Trim Level
'98 Explorer Sport
Can I see some pics of explorer sports with shaved door handles. Also how much does it cost?
 



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I saw on "Pimp My Ride" where they removed the handles, and you opened the doors with a remote....that was tight!!! Maybe look into that too?
 












A few explorers in cardomain have shaved handles.... Try searching around they are most likely highly rated so it shouldnt be too hard to find them.
 






Someone at my school has a dodge ram with shaved door handles and it looks awesome
 






its not something i'd do on a fairly stock vehicle. It will require that you repaint the doors etc. etc. generally i'd leave until you'd modified the vehicle to the point that your going to get a show qualty custom paint job anyways.

its up to you though.

as for cost i think you can find someone to do it the right way (with metal) for around 250 a handle, but the paint will kill you.
 






its illegal in most if not all states
 












Laddy said:

Probably cause the cops can't open your doors if you have no handles.
 






j602 said:
Probably cause the cops can't open your doors if you have no handles.
Or an EMT, or a Fire fighter, or any one else trying to save your life in a dangerous situation.

I love the look of shaved handles, but for safety reasons I can never bring my self to do it.
 






I have mine shaved and I have had no problems and I have some messed up cops that write bs tickets like having a for sale sign in your window. If you think about it, I wouldn't think it would be illegal because what would the difference be between having your door handles shaved and having a locked door (most modern cars lock all doors once the car is in drive) in a situation where EMTs, fire fighters, or police need to open your door?

Money wise:
My local shop charges $120 a door for the solenoids + extra money to wire in a remote.
The shaving aspect depending on the shop could go from $250-$400 a door including paint.
I did mine myself so I'm not too exact on the pricing, but it's a good estimate seeing how a couple of my buddies got them done.
 






i want to know what you did? got any pictures? whats up?
 






not 100% sure that it is illegal to not have door handles.... if an emergency situation, the emergency responder has tools to get any door open.... if they need to, they will bust out the window or cut the door off
 






expo5.0 are you asking me what I did?
 






yeah
 






Well I painted my whole car myself, so what I did was I removed the doors so I could paint every visible spot. So here's the process that I did.
1. I removed the outside door handles, the key locks, door locks and all the metal rods that are connected to them
2. Made cardboard templates for the shape of the openings from the door handles and key locks
3. Cut metal plates from the templates
4. Used a metal disc grinder to grind all the way down to the metal inside and about 3" diameter (cause if your not an experienced welder you'll get ripples in the sheet metal and you'll need to smooth them out with bondo) around all openings and wire brushed to prep the surface.
5. Tacked in two spots each plate to the door
6. Make a continual weld all the way around the plate (it has to be continual because I didn't and you could see where the door handle used to be causing me to reshave them over x-mas break).
7. Grind down any excess weld
8. A lot of Bondo and a lot of sanding to make it smooth.
9. Lay about 6 coats of primer and sand between each one to prevent the body filler from absorbing the base coat.
10. Paint base coat, sand base coast (I did this 2-3 times to get a good paint finish)
11. Clear coat and sand and polish


I don't have pictures, but I'm going to be reshaving my doors and I'll do a write-up with pictures.
 






Good Times said:
what would the difference be between having your door handles shaved and having a locked door
Hmmmmmmm yeah good point.
 






what would the difference be between having your door handles shaved and having a locked door

The difference? Well on the X, it's a difference between the UGLY, black ABS Plastic handle, that looks faded if not kept up on. OR a smooth painted surface........on a 1st or 2nd Gen, a similar effect can be done with body paint matching the handles, but it still looks half-assed.

With a locked door, the lock can still be picked, or someone with a 'similar' key could easily get in.

With no lock, and handle it's THAT much harder.

If they REALLY wanted in the car, smashing the window is always an option, but they're gonna do that no matter WHAT has been done to the car.

Shaving the car was NEVER meant to be a practicle 'catch 22' around not locking your doors. If your not the type to lock your doors REGULARLY, DON'T SHAVE YOUR HANDLES. If you can't remember to lock a door, you can't remeber to take your keys out of the car. I know, I speak from experience.

I had a Shaved S-10, and it was AWESOME! until I shut the door with my keys inside it, MORE THAN ONCE.....and NO I didn't have a hidden switch on the body/frame.

Ryan
 






Spdrcer34 said:
I had a Shaved S-10, and it was AWESOME! until I shut the door with my keys inside it, MORE THAN ONCE.....and NO I didn't have a hidden switch on the body/frame.

Ryan

That happened to my friend on his nissan truck, only the solenoids froze so they couldn't get the door open and he was getting ready to install a hidden switch the next day.
 



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want a quick way into any car, brick. If your having a heart attack and ems needs to get in there gonna smash your window, not that big a deal.
 






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