The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors 55.2-to-72 Door skins

I've talked about this before, but I would like to bring it up again. The edge of the door skin where it meets the front fender is not made right on any of the trucks mentioned! The older 47-55.1 truck doors can be aligned so smoothly at this juncture. The rest of the years have a factory "kink" that runs vertically on the front edge of the doors. Panel fit up on these models is really a compromise. Some of course are worse than others, but I've never seen one that fit as well as the earlier 47-55.1 trucks. I would love to hear from as many guys as possible about this problem and what you've done to minimize it. Thanks, Jim.

not clear what this 'kink' is, got pictures? which series you workin on? you're talking about 3 different designs of cheap, mass produced consumer goods, bound to be variations, especially 50-60 years later .... maybe point out the 'compromise' here

sometimes a bit of frustration with fit and finish, especially if you're trying to use pieces that weren't part of the truck originally and, if you don't understand the 'compromises' the engineers were working with

Bill

Bill,
Thanks for responding. Is that your Task Force truck in the photo? Nice looking paint! My favorite color! I am working on a '65. The problem I am referring to is less on the task force design, but is very prominent on the 60-66 and also on the 67-72 models. What I am calling a "kink" (out of frustration for me), is more of a gentle rolled edge or curve that runs from the top on the fender towards the bottom...usually getting better at the bottom. It is about an inch wide. I have the book, "Chevrolet Trucks" by Mike Mueller at home and the problem is clear on the photos of the pristine examples in the book. In fact, the cover shows a gorgeous, black 55 first series in contrast to a red 55 second series and the "kink" is obvious. I've been fooling around with these ole trucks for forty years and I guess I am a perfectionist when it comes to body gaps and such. If I am painting a show car, I will spend many hours shimming the panels until the best fit is achieved. Then, I will put a skim of filler right across the door gaps...cut my gap perfectly while the filler is half-hard, then block sand until the joint/gap is perfect. Bear in mind, I am only talking about a few thousandths of filler here and there after I am finished, but the results are dramatic. No matter what angle the light glints off a panel done this way, it always looks great. The trucks however, on the series I've mentioned, can't be done that way because the metal is curved inwards towards the centerline of the truck all the way down the door skin at the edge that is adjacent to the front fender. I've discussed this with Tony Smith at 4-5-6 Trucks and he looked at all the trucks in his corral and said about half were that way, and half weren't. It seems to be something variable about the way the factory crimped the door skins onto the sub-frames.

Jim

I did a lot of the work on the truck, but belongs to a buddy, and the paint job was done by a good local shop .... don't currently have any 60-66 trucks, but have had lots in the past, from what I recall of them the main fit problem is the separate top cowl piece and the deep "feature line" cut that makes lining everything up painful, but don't recall the door edge crimp being a particular problem - you have to remember fitment there is critical to prevent the door edge jamming against the fender and chipping paint because of the geometry of how the hinge moves the door, might even be that at some point the factory decided the best way to deal with it was to fold the door edge a bit to avoid any interference - don't recall it being a problem on either of the 67's I had .... OTOH, one reason I bought my current 58 driver is it had the best door fit of any TF truck I'd had or seen, perfectly even all the way round, unusual to find an old truck with good fitting doors

Bill