Drilling for poppers for Half Doors

[PEC]

Dear All,

 

I am contemplating to install half-doors. A quick review of the current situation of poppers around the "door frame" show that there are poppers only at the back (see pictures). Nothing near the windscreen, nothing under the seal. I don't know if this has to do with the fact that my full doors have armrests but, anyway, this is the situation.

With the prospect of fitting new poppers, I guess drilling might be required. Can someone point me to a video or a photo book where the various steps and tools clearly appear for installing poppers directly on the car's skin?

Thank you very much

[Dan R]

Out of interest, what make of half doors are you looking at and do you have a S3 or SV ? 

[Gridgway]

Scary!  But if it were me drilling, I'd put a layer or two of masking tape down, mark the hole to be drilled with a pencil, then very carefully centre punch it.  Enough to make a centring dent, but not enough to put a bigger dent in the panel.  Then I'd very very carefully drill with a small sharp drill before drilling out to pop rivet size!  Obviosuly you need ti know where to drill!

Are you using the one way poppers to keep the half doors on?

ETA, do half doors work ok with a full screen?

Edited October 23, 2023 by Gridgway
Added a question

[nickhi]

If you don't have the half doors yet, I would get those first before drilling.  I recently got some new half doors and they're about an inch short of the studs on the scuttle, despite my old doors and tonneau fitting nicely. 

[PEC]

Thank you for your respective replies. The idea is to match the half doors to an aeroscreen, not the existing widnscreen.

I am contemplating soft bit for sevens half doors and my car is an S3. I would like to use the existing poppers which are above the rear wheel arch but will definitely need to drill some more at the front and maybe also below the seal. An alternative might be to fit some armrests to the half doors but I am not sure this is possible and I would still need to drill at the front.

[7_Malc]

I have fitted arm rests to my Caterham-supplied S3 half-doors. It is a little fiddly, but they do make huge difference to driver comfort and also help fix the half-door to the car. Mine have poppers front and rear, so yes I think you will need to drill and fix poppers on your scuttle. As mentioned above, tape the doors firmly in place first, and mark the holes with a centre punch. I was able to push a sharp screwdriver through the doors to create the popper hole, so something similar could be used to align the door first.

[PEC]

Thank you very much to all who responded