Once again, I’ve deviating from the manual. I picked up a pair of Hangar 18 designed door gas strut brackets. These are supposed to cause less deformation in the door, operate smoother and be less obtrusive.

First task is to create hardpoints in the D-tubes that make up the door frame. For hardpoints, I’m going to use a 2″ x 1-1/2″ x 1/2″ block of aluminum. First I drilled and tapped the holes in the hardpoint. Then I located the position of the bracket.

Next I marked where I would open up the D-tube to slide the hardpoint in.

I then sanded the inside of the door frame and the aluminum hardpoint. Masking tape is applied to the outside of the door frame and bracket to keep adhesive from sticking to it.

Then I mixed up some structural adhesive with some cabo to thicken it. The adhesive is applied to the door frame and the hardpoint.The hardpoint is then inserted and the bracket is attached until the adhesive sets.

Once it set, I patched the d-tube and moved on to the hardpoint on the b-pillar.