Street Dreams Hinge FAQ
PT Cruiser Suicide Hinge
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Street Dreams Hinge FAQ


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Hinges: Hinge FAQ Kit Car Street / Hot Rod Scissor Suicide & Hidden Hinges Hood Trunk Accessories

This page is to answer frequently asked questions concerning our line of hinges, particularly "scissor" or "jackknife" door hinges or "hidden" or "suicide" style door hinges.

Kit Cars: Questions on products for kit cars and replicas
Production Cars: Questions on products for major brand cars
Rods and Classics: Questions on products for street rods and older cars


Kit Cars

The hinges shown above were made specifically for the scissor-hinged kit car bodies. Using these hinges for other applications may require a lot of custom work. Most car body designs are made to make side opening easy, without any consideration for "scissor" opening modifications. The exotic cars that have scissor operating doors have proper door jams shapes and latching mechanisms already designed into the car because that style door operation was the intended outcome. If you examine the trailing ends of the scissor-hinged doors, you'll notice that the bottom rear edge is significantly forward of the top rear edge, there is a specific reason for this, and that reason also makes a custom hinge for other cars difficult.


Production Cars

For production Cars, those made by big manufacturers such as GM, Honda and so on, we recommend our GT Style Kit. Installing this kit requires welding skills.

What does the GT Kit include?
This kit includes two hinges, four gas shocks, eight ball studs and installation instructions. This kit does require some skill but is much simpler to install than our 1B-4 kit as it only requires good, basic welding skills to install.

Why is it called a GT Kit?
Street Dreams is reselling authentic GT Factory style hinges, it is our shorthand notation for that product.

Will this kit work on my XX brand YYYY year car?
Street Dreams does not make a kit for any specific car. We made our 1B-4 kit with mount plates to be as general-purpose as possible so that the mount plates can be modified to make the hinges work in as many cars as possible. The GT Kit fits a larger variety of cars with much fewer modifications, which is why we recommend it as standard.

Will this kit work on my two door car?
Yes, this is what we designed to work on most two door cars.

Will this kit work on my four door car?
Yes, but like the problem with SUVs, the doors might not open widely enough because the doors aren't as long as those on a two door car. Although with our recommended installation does allow the hinge to tilt the bottom edge of the door away from the car a bit, it is often not enough to make it easy to get in and out because the door and door opening isn't as long.

Will this kit work on my truck or SUV?
They might work but the door might not be able to open wide enough for most people to get in. We would recommend a "suicide" style hinge over a scissor door. See also the question on four door cars, as the door panel height to door length ratio is similar, the principles are usually the same.

Will this kit work on my small car?
Yes, our GT Kit has been successfully installed on Hondas and other small cars.

Will this kit work on my car with large, heavy doors?
If you have a C5 Corvette, contact us on obtaining a special bolt-in GT Kit for it. This is a special kit with mount plates specially made for the C5's fiberglass body.

Will I need to modify the outer body?
Our kits would mount to the door jamb, so the outer body can stay the same, without cutting the fender or door skin, but sometimes a lot of tweaking is needed to make everything work just right.

Can I use an electrical, pneumatic or hydraulic lift with this kit?
Yes. We still suggest using the included gas shocks to act as a counter force for the door weight. This allows smaller and less expensive actuators to be used, and also helps equalize the opening speed and closing speed. Street Dreams does not currently sell pneumatic or hydraulic actuators, but we have electric actuators available in the
Hinge Accessories section.

I lost my instructions for my kit. Can I get another copy?
We have the instructions for the GT Kit and other products here. If that does not work, we can fax or mail a copy if you need. Please contact us to request one.


Street Rods

Nothing here yet. Sorry. Email or call us with questions.


Pricing and Ordering:
Our product and price list for many of the parts we sell is here:
Products and Prices

To order, paying with a credit card, call with a full description, and part numbers if Vintage Air or Walker parts are desired. Please do not email a credit card number. We accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards.

If you wish to mail your order, please print this form, fill it out and mail it to us.


Thank you for stopping by. New products may arrive on a monthly basis, so please visit again. We can also make custom variations on products we have. If we can be of service to you, please let us know.

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Hours: Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm, Eastern Standard Time

Contact info:

Street Dreams phone: (269) 795 3100
4833 Cherry Valley RD email: sales@streetdreamsbyross.com
Middleville MI 49333 Web page: http://www.streetdreamsbyross.com/

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This page was last updated March 9, 2005.