double doors on 83 mci

[hanks69chevy]

If I was to keep the double doors do they make electric motors for them. I'm thinking about turning the two doors into one.Does anyone have information on doing this. And pictures of the job when done.

[Bill B /bus]

Are you writing about the air operated bifold doors?

Bill

[hanks69chevy]

Yes I am.

[bevans6]

About all you could do is replace the air cylinders with electric actuators but it would be deathly slow I think.  The double door hinges make a complex motion, the doors are very heavy and the cylinders are about 2" ID which means they are creating around 350 lbs of force each to move the doors.  The hinge points for the single door are almost certainly in your bus frame but unused - they were in my 1980 MC-5C when I replaced my double doors with a single sedan door..  The lower hinge point did not have the internal captive nut piece that the single door lower hinge bolts to but it was easy to make.  You basically have to stick with the PITA to stop leaking air operated double door system, find a sedan door off any MC-8 or 9 or 5 (I think they are all the same but double check) or weld the doors together.  Welding the doors together has been done, there was a page on the internet somewhere that I found when I was contemplating the same thing.  Basically you take the doors off, get rid of the actuating mechanism and the hinges (which won't work for a single door mount), strip the doors completely bare, fixture them in a jig you have to make, make sure the measurements are correct and aligned perfectly, and start welding in/cutting strips of stainless steel to join the bits together.  You then have to figure out a way to mount it using barn door hinges, since you won't have the MCI upper hinge which is critical to how the factory door is installed.  Be aware the doors are bloody heavy, probably close to 200 lbs assembled as a single door.  When I was shopping I found take-off single doors for the $1,000 range of price, which I thought was silly, but then I found a buddy who had two parts buses and I got a door off of one of his buses for $100.  Even though the donor bus was a 5C as well, the sedan door was about 3/8" too wide and I had to do a lot of massaging to make it fit in the hole in my bus.  It just hit on both the front and the rear, and it's a testament to the strength of these buses the amount of force I used to move the jambs farther apart.  I used a porta-power jack and it barely worked.

Brian

[Oonrahnjay]

    Gene Lewis in Buies Creek NC (near Raleigh) published a very detailed page on his website that shows how he did it in his bus (not sure make/model).  My bus is very different from his but I used his procedure to guide my design for a completely new door for my bus.  I don't have a link, but if you can find it, you may get very good info.   

BH  NC   USA

[luvrbus]

It's www.coachconversioncentral.com now Bruce check under articles 

[Oonrahnjay]

It's www.coachconversioncentral.com now Bruce check under articles 

     That's it.   The exact page is http://www.coachconversioncentral.com/one_piece_door.htm  I had copied the page to a file but I'd lost the URL.  Thanks, Clifford.