What a relief!

I thought I’d better take the bull by the horns this afternoon and do something about the broken door tube as otherwise it would be a block to getting much done this week-end. So I removed the left hand door, got it onto my patio table and drilled out all of the new pop rivets that I only put in a week or so ago. First sigh of relief – they all came out cleanly without damaging the new plastic and released the damaged door tube.

Then I laid the tube out and tried to straighten it a bit where it had fractured but as expected, the bottom bit just fell off. No worries as the lower section is almost completely straight – all the bend is in the top third. Now came the tricky and very nerve-racking bit… using the old tube as a template and bending the new tube into shape.

Why was this so nerve-racking you may ask? Well, when you bend a length of copper tube over your knee, you usually insert a length of spring that stops the tube collapsing. If you do the job properly, with a bending machine, you use a former placed over the tube to do the same job. I had neither of these to help bend this length of aluminium tube – its diameter was too small – and as anyone who has worked with aluminium knows, even the more malleable grades like this one bend so far and then just snap when over-stressed, as I had already found with the door tube. I also had only my knee (and any other suitable body parts!) to bend the tube around and it was important to get a long sweeping curve of just the right shape to match the bend of the cabin tube.

So how’d I do? Rather well actually 😀 I managed to match the shape of the old tube more or less perfectly, even though I say it myself. And when I held the new tube up against the cabin tube, I could see where a little extra bend was needed in the lower section to match the curve of the cabin tube and prevent the door ‘catching’ when it was closed, as it was doing originally, before I tried to bend it in situ and damaged it.

So at the end of it all I was highly relieved to say the least. Then I nipped down to the local car accessory shop and bought some more gloss white spray paint and gave it a good coat, so it’ll be dry tomorrow and I’ll be able to redrill, pop rivet the plastic back on and refit the door.

And yes, I also checked – luckily P & M supplied a few more pop rivets than I originally needed. So I have enough to finish the job and that’s a relief too 😉