Hi All,
I haven’t been on Armorama much recently, but I did a search, and there is only one thread that even addresses the Border Merkava. I have the subject kit, which looks fantastic in the box. I’ve been working on airplanes primarily of late, but I hope someone can answer my question. Because this kit has a full interior, I plan to have every hatch/panel that can be open to remain open. I did a quick perusal of the instructions to see if it was obvious whether the rear personnel door (that has a top part which flips up and a lower part which hinges down) could, in fact, be left open. It doesn’t appear to me to be definitive once way or the other. Has anyone built this kit yet, and were you able to leave that personnel door open? Ideally, it would be great if that hatch/door could be moved to either condition when the model is complete. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
This is obviously not the Border kit. It is the OG Tamiya Merkava. Since all of the hatches you see were molded closed, I’d say you have a very good chance of keeping them open on the Border kit as it gives you both upper and lower hatches separately.
Step 6:
Lower half-door. 1. Hinge pin. 2. Half of a hinge. Do not glue.
Also step 6:
Something gets glued beside the door.
3. Do not spill glue on the hinge. Obviously …
Step 11:
- Hinge pins and corresponding holes
- Assembling the upper halfdoor
- The upper half of the hinge from step 6
Do not glue the hinges
Step 12:
Mounting the inner rear wall with the upper half door into the hull and trapping the hinge pins for the lower half door. Watch out for glue overflow
- Note the half hinges in this sub-assembly
- Lower half door and the rear of the lower hull
Interior parts seem to be there so that the open door can show something realistic and not just and empty hole. I can not judge on the completeness of the provided internal details.
If you compare theirs with mine from almost thirty years ago it seems they got pretty close to getting it right. 
Thanks to everyone who answered. It appears that the answer to my question is that the rear door/hatch can be left open. I fully believed that this had to be the case, given the interior being present, but it just wasn’t obvious to me. Many thanks again!