The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop How can I fix a fracture in the door sheet metal?

The rear door has a split that runs along the body contour, around the jamb and fans out on the inside panel. You can see the upper part is shifted inward, or the lower part is shifted out on the picture of the edge. I’m considering just replacing the door, but I might as well try to fix it. How would you go about repairing this? I have an Oxy-Acetylene rig and a Gmaw rig and minimal welding experience, no sheet metal experience, so any suggestions are welcome. I could simply lay a bead along the fracture and grind it in, that would be a crude fix. My gut tells me it will need to be repaired from the inside. I could cut an access hole on the inside panel and gusset along the fracture, and then patch the access hole.

https://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/crack.html
I was young and ambitious back then.

The trick on yours is to bring it back tight. Ratchet straps thru the window and down under door to squeeze in that direction and clamps in the other. Like you said, won't hurt to try. If it's racked/twisted, stick a 2 x 4 from inside to outside thru the window and lever it.

MIG it.

That looks easy enough, Thanks! My main concern is getting that angle at the body contour looking nice, and fixing it so it doesn't fracture anytime soon again.

Good advice but you may have to spread the gap wider to align panels first and then draw back together once aligned. When yo say BACK door I guess it is a panel or suburban. One thing to remember on cracked panels on old rides is when new they were used as commercial vehicles where the door was slammed all day long every day and most roads were unpaved. The way it will probably be used now any weld will last a lifetime.

Evan is right, or at least from the images it seems that way. Here is one suggestion you may not have considered. On parts like this often you can use 3/4" pipe type wood clamps and a long threaded section of pipe to pull things together. Get the ones at Harbor Freight...I think they're about $12 per set. They'll work fine for this. If they don't fit exactly (because of curve of door, etc) I've used two of them (two sections of pipe and two sets of clamps, that is) plus two pieces of 2x4 on each side of the door. Not easy to describe, but I'm sure you'll figure it out. Just pull them together well and oxy-acetylene weld or actually I'd flux and braze the seam (no sense in burning through and it is really easy to do that on this sort of sheet metal) and you'll be done. A brazed joint will be plenty strong enough. If you're careful, you can braze right up into the contour part and then file it later. Good luck!

Wow! 157 views in 5 days! I'll practice welding on the exhaust first, then jump right on to the door. I can push the two halves into alignment by hand, so I think it will be easy to clamp. I did find a video of someone repairing a fender with Oxy-Acetylene only, no welding rods needed. If I had a spare door, I might try the oxy, but that is an artform.

Oxy-acetylene is easier than most people think, Walter. If you set your pressures correctly, get the right size tip for the work, keep your wrist moving and watch the puddle, you can weld like a champ.

However, brazing with a good flux is very easy with something like this and is what I'd do in the case of your door. A good brazing rod, some Harris Stay-Silv flux (it is the best in my experience) and you'll be amazed. That stuff will almost flow like solder and the joint is strong as it ever needs to be. Since brazing is done at a lower temp, it is both easier to use, faster and it won't cause you to distort the metal or risk burn-through.

With all due respect Jon, without a fair amount of practice, a first time oxy-acetylene welder, has about the same chance of success as me landing a 747.

In trade school I attended for Autobody, to learn how to gas weld, we had a project to make a garden hose holder out of a 1/2 of a steel tire rim. We burned out the rivets with an oxy-aceletyene torch and cut the rim in half. Then added 1/4” x 1” steel flat bar for a mount. To start, we had to weld up the 1/4” holes left from the rivets and any scaring left from the cutting torch. Now the steel rim is quite a bit thicker that the body of a truck but every one of the students blew at least one big hole in the rim in their attempt to close that 1/4” hole and some including myself, several. Once you blew the hole, you had to weld it back up. We all managed to get our projects done but it was a very humbling experience. It taught me the basics of gas welding, something I have used on several occasions throughout my career.

My recommendation is to braze it. So much easier to learn and it takes much less heat. Note that you still need to cool the panel during this process or it will still warp. I use a rung out towel dipped in water.

I have to disagree with you. If for nothing else everyone should have a small oxy-acet kit to use with a rosebud to heat things up. I have brazed cast iron using brass with oxy-acet and have gotten better results than trying to weld it.

Add a cutting torch to the kit and it provides a lot of time saving in cutting metal and/or cutting old brackets off, stuff like that. Seems you have some time on oxy-acet, so not sure why you're so dismissive about it.

I bought a small set off craigslist, took it to the local welding shop and had them go over and make sure everything was in good working order, and I get my gas from them. Been about 15 years now...


Personally I wouldn't braze that, that's not how people do body work. May work, but still not the way it's typically done. What I have seen is to pull it tight, and just put a few tacks, spread out to hold the seam, and continue to fill the seam between with more tacks, letting it cool, and continuing to tack until the seam is filled in, being very patient to let it cool. Say you put a tack at each end and one in the center to start, then fill in the space with tacks. After the seam is filled, grind the tacks down smooth. At that point you can't see the seam. You could weld it with oxy-acet as Jon suggests and that will work better than brazing, IMO, but this is not something I would braze, I would only braze cast iron. Also, if you braze this you will have the color of brass mixed with the the color sheet metal. Could look like a Damascus tattoo on the sheet.

You could use a small 1/16" 6011 and stick weld it, dropping the amps down to about 50-55 so you don't blow out the sheet and use this tack method I describe, but these days it is more commonly done with mig. I would do it with tig, I weld with stick and tig, and as I like to say, I don't need mig 'cause I get my snap/crackle/pop from stick. Remember that stick was used to repair body work like that for years prior to mig and tig hitting the scene. AFAIK, that's how the majority of body work was done using the tack method and grinding flush. Maybe someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

I think that with 15 minutes of practice on some similar gauge sheet metal, just anyone except a total klutz could O/A weld that crack up without blowing holes. When I first started, my dad kept telling me "add more heat". I still find myself not getting full penetration with O/A at times.

I agree with you TradToolWorks, that an OA setup is a necessary tool for working on our old trucks. I have gas welded allot in my career as a machinist, so I’m not being dismissive, but more of a realists as to the capabilities of a new gas welder. Working on a hard to find rear door on a burb (or panel), I wouldn’t want to tell a fellow ‘bolter to gas weld it only to find out the process made it worse. As I said, I don’t know the OP’s capabilities. If he spends enough time to learn the process, then I say go for it.

My recommendation to braze was due to the fact that the OP is fairly new to welding, and it does work really well. Back in the early 70’s, replacement panels were flanged, pop riveted on, then brazed in most “production” shops. Note that I said “production” shops, meaning shops that did mostly insurance repairs, as that was where your bread and butter was. That process helped limit the heat introduced into the panel to minimize warpage and was an accepted practice in the industry. Most shops back then only used OA setups. TIG and MIG were in their infancies and expensive.

HOWEVER, having said all that, today, TIG would be the best choice. I don’t own a TIG setup so I would MIG it.

Phil,

I pretty much agree with everything you said, so not disagreeing with you. I will add that I couldn't agree more about welding on some old 'burb panels, welding is an acquired skill. Mig would actually be a good choice, and these days from what I have seen in body work, mig is the most common, using the tack technique. I do have a tig setup, and it's my favorite process of any of the welding, but it's also the most difficult. Panel work is not as difficult with tig as it's typically doing the tack technique.

On my '46 there's a tig weld on what appears to be a fender tear, about 4" in length, it looks like the fender was sewed closed, I kinda like it, it's like a battle scar.

Funny thing about my truck, it has it's own patina. Even thought it's slathered with Rustoleum applied with a brush, it has a patina of it's own. No saying my truck ain't original, it's actually more original than most of the fully restored trucks, IMO.

This is a problem that many of us older guys have had to deal with. Along with Jon G and the others I agree. My method is to buy some of the plumbers foam or something like it. Grease down the area to be braised or welded and spray the foam on. Let it dry for an Hour then carefully remove. Make an exact copy of it out of 2 x 2 or 2 by. The wood working part can be the most difficult part but, you can get it with patience. Clamp the wooden forms in the backside and keep hot water on hand then start brazing which is more forgiving than welding. I normally use clothes hanger material but old hanger material is getting difficult to find. Don't worry about the globs and runs, after a few minutes you WILL get the hang of it. Brass is easier to work with and you have more control over hot spots. Wish I could be there to show you. I once converted a 55 Chevy 150 body by cutting off 57 Chevy fins so that I could race on the dirt roundy rounder tracks and look like my 55 was a 57. That is where my brother and Dad showed me to race with the always cheating pro's. I learned well. Doc