The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Panels 'N Burbs Straightening a TF barn door

I'm following all the seat discussions with interest, there are some good ideas there. But before I worry about making my burb comfortable I need to make it weathertight...

The drivers side barn door on my 58 Suburban has been bent, there is a 1 inch gap at the top outside corner. The door fits good from the bottom of the window downward and lines up pretty well where the two doors meet. If I could buy a replacement door there would be no question here but I think I need to do a repair and I'm looking for suggestions on the best approach.

I also have to do some major repairs on the upper hinge mount on both doors. I'll take some digital pics and see if I can document my method.

For the bent door, my initial thought was to slice the inside shell in a few places and pull the shape back to original then weld it up again. This could be tricky, if I don't slice it in the right place I could create more problems. Then I thought it might be easier to just pull the door skin off so I could work the shell back into shape, maybe without a lot of cutting and welding. Has anyone ever separated the inner and outer sections of a barn door? Any other suggestions on affecting a repair?

Being a new guy I'm not sure if this post belongs here or in the Paint and Body forum. I hope I'm not the only one to ever have a bent barn door to deal with!

the primary problem that crops up w/ the barn doors is rusting at the bottom from condensation in that inaccessabile area, and it's NO fun to open the crimp around any door and get it back together properly, so "just" pulling the skin off shouldn't be on the list of possibilities

to straighten body parts you first need to directly reverse the force that caused the damage - assess that well - pics of the damage might get some more help, and then if the mod decides it should be moved, it'll be moved

Bill

Okay, taking the skin off is not normal practice which is good, I wasn't looking forward to it. I hate drilling out spot welds. The good news is that there is no rust in either of the doors, just bad upper hinge mounts and the bent section. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow after I reassemble the door on the truck.

Well, I went in and built a web site although I'd much rather work on the truck. More fun, less stress. Anyhow, I have pictures at this site: (you'll need to click on the more photos button, I can't get the link to take you all the way there??).
Photos

I uploaded full resolution pics so I hope the damage can be seen. It looks like the deformation force came from the very top outside corner. Gap is widest there and measures nearly an inch. Any suggestions on how to proceed would be appreciated.
Mark

it looks like something caused by the door being mashed inward [at that dent point near the latch?] while the check arm folded backwards - do you have the check arm from that door? damaged?

the bolt holes on the top of the door where the check arm attaches and a point just below the top of the window will be the 'quadrent' the straightening force is needed, but I'm not enuff of a bodyman to say just how to go about it I'd be inclined to replace the door

and don't lose track of that license light/holder I see in the back, they're real hens teeth

and to see the full size, one needs to right click the pics and select 'open' or 'view' .... here's the relevent one


Bill

Bill, I do have the check arm and aside from a slight bend in the upper section that attaches to the body there is no significant damage to it. The check arm for the passenger door is not as straight as this one. There is a pretty good dent in the door where the check arm hinges at the middle but again, there is a dent in the other door at the same point. Did you notice the crease in the door skin just below the body line that runs under the upper hinge? It is just visible in the picture you reference and runs nearly the entire width of the door.

I'd be very happy to find a replacement door and buy my way out of this repair. Problem is: I've looked and I don't think there are many of them out there. I'll post a wanted add and see what happens. If I have to fix it I'll try pulling it into shape before I do anything else. Thanks.
Mark

yes they are scarce for sure, but keep looking, they do show up

seems like something must have happened with the check arm to just affect that corner - those arms do get worn so they flop about into bad positions ... that crease looks like where the stress 'ended' when the damage happened, the skin had to wrinkle someplace ... I've looked at the pic a number of times, thinking how an 'opposite' force might be applied - a port-a-power is the best way to ease things back in shape without causing more damage in another place, if you can come close to an exact opposite force to what caused the damage, but you might have to do it with the door in place, brakes on, port-a-power against the garage wall!

good luck with it, if I think of anything else I'll post it here, or if I hear of any doors around

Bill

If you could take the door off and use some type of pulling system to pull the top of the door back in. It shouldn't be that hard to bend the top of the door. Maybe lay it down on the floor on the outer door skin and then block it to the ceiling of your shop using some lumber or something and then put a jack on the bent area and start bending it back to shape. I don't know but it should work to push it back into shape. Good luck, tell us how it turns out.

I'm looking around the shop at what I have available and how I might go about supporting the door to push or pull it into shape. Keep the suggestions coming, they all help. Makes me wish I had gone ahead and planted a few tie downs in the floor before the concrete guys came.

I was concentrating on getting the door hinge repair done to the other barn door but my 20 year old air compressor came to a screeching halt (literally) last week. Failure analysis shows a bad bearing on one of the two pistons. Lesson learned: when you overwork a (7.1 SCFM @90) compressor you should over-maintain it too! I'm checking to see if Santa can help bail me out.

All that means I have more time to ponder the bent door. If travel doesn't get in the way I may have some stories to tell by the new year. Stay tuned and hope you all have some Happy Holidays.
Mark

a real useful tool for not much money!

Bill

Well I did it. I won't know if I'm done until I get the upper hinge mount repaired but I think it is good enough to work from here. I'm still learning the web stuff so all the pictures I posted are reversed from what you should view. Pictures of the jig I made and the results are here door straightening pics

There was good and bad, I learned a lot. The good is that the crease in the outer door skin below the window is gone. ...and of course the gap in the upper corner is gone. The bad is that after getting the crease out of the skin I should have moved the brace up 4 inches before I finished pulling. The fulcrum point needed to move. Because the fulcrum was too low I ended up pulling the skin alongside the window down against the inner framework so it is a bit recessed when put up against the body. I think (hope) I can work it back up when I repair the upper hinge structure. By the way I had the door in and out of the jig three times while trying to figure out how hard to pull to make the gap disappear. Between the jig moving a bit and the door springing back after each pull there was a lot of drama involved.

Since I was at it, I posted a few pics of the passenger side door hinge repair that is on hold for now - waiting on a new compressor so I can make the welds look better hinge mount repair

I don't think I would have tried this without the suggestions, thanks again.
Mark

great job Mark! a nice Christmas present for yourself and the truck

Bill

I like what you did, you got real creative. Good Job

Very nice job! Great pics of process. I have an older AD door I need to do some rehab on myself. Maybe I will try to document it when I get it goin.

I thought I would update everyone on how this turned out. Pictures are posted here The bad news is I over-wrote all the pics I posted earlier so if somone wants me to re-enter them you need to say so. Also, I have no idea why the pics show up in the order they are in. The chronology is all messed up. I need lessons but would rather work on the truck!

I had to repair the upper hinge structure inside the door so I could see how the door fit against the body and against the other door. Once that was done, the left door did not follow the same contour as the right door where they meet. I reconfigured the jig and pulled the inside top corner to provide more curve to the door. After about four tries I had the contour looking pretty good. But, now the bottom edge of the left door would not pull in far enough. It sat proud of the body by a half inch. I reconfigured the jig again and pulled a few times until the door fit real nice all around.

I then went after the gap, both between doors and between body and doors. This was mostly a hinge adjustment but I had to heat the lower left hinge to bend it enough to push the left door away from the body by about 3/16 inch. Couldn't see any other way.

Then I went after getting the doors to lie smooth with the body, not sitting proud and not sunk in. This was hammer and dolly work to move edges and worked out real well. The problem I oringinally created by pulling the left door skin too tight (on the first series of pulls) was corrected by this step.

So all in all I am very happy with how the rear doors fit now. Just wish I could find a lower latch for the left door. Since I finished this I have been working on the driver's door. It is a long story and can wait for another day.

Looks good. My passenger door is wacked. Have you found a source for rubber for the rear doors?

If you have a TF model, Steele Rubber Products part number is 70-1730-72, It is not cheap...cost is $116.40/set. It is designed to fit into the original holes. call them at 800-425-6088 or go to Steele's website

If you have an AD, Steele has several types of glue in. Maybe someone knows what works best or how to measure and ensure you get the right size??

tootin my horn again .... I can attest that the TF barn door rubber Steele supplies is 100% accurate .... I sent them the good seals off a pair of NOS doors I got so they could repro them, and I bought the first 2 sets

Bill

If it were me, I would partially open the door, block it with wood at the top corner in the middle of the truck and then apply controlled force to the sprung corner. I like to use clamps for that kind of thing. Some of the old GM books show how to tweak doors using special body clamps.

I think you need to consider whether the door will twist around the hinges or whether it will move where you want it to. The hinge supports inside the door are not all that strong, in my case they were broke. After all the time to repair them I wasn't about to try to use them to hold the door steady while trying to bend it.
I tried exactly what you mentioned on the driver's door after finishing the work on the barn doors. I blocked the door and then pulled on the lower rear corner. I ended up twisting the door on my first attempt and had to spend a looonnnng time fixing that problem in addition to the original problem of the door did not aligning properly. I'll admit I don't always know what I'm doing but the driver's door was a hard lesson.