The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Removing doors

Along the line I'm going to have to remove my doors to work on the bottoms.
What's the drill? Should I unscrew the hinges from the cab, or leave the hinges on the cab and unscrew them from the doors?

I assume that lots of penetrating oil and an impact wrench will come into play.

Any hints or tricks I should know about?

I heard about a trick for re-aligning the doors afterward. before you take them off drill a small hole (say 1/8" or smaller) through the hinge and door for alignment purposes later. For getting them off, soak in PB blaster or WD40 and one of the hammer impact drivers are very useful.

I just watched an episode of Trucks on a c10 project. They drilled a pilot hole through the hinge into the cab, to help line things up when re-installing the door. Then they unbolted the hinge from the cab. What year truck are you working on?

I mentioned this a couple of years back & you would have thought by the replies I got that I had just keyed their car/truck & slept w/their woman....Joe

Yeah, a lot of people shudder at inflicting 'extra damage' to their classic truck. If you are doing a ground up money-no-object restoration I can see not wanting to poke extra holes. But for anything else, it makes sense. A small pilot hole would help you avoid massive headaches later, so why not? Work smarter, not harder.

That is a HUGE tip, thanks.

It's a 59 1/2T LWB

why bother gettin out the drill and breakin a small bit?
use an awl to scribe a line along both sides of the hinge where it lines up with the sheet metal - even if you sand things down and paint them it'll still show on reassembly and never be noticed later
OTOH, once you've worked over the doors and added new rubber seals, you'll no doubt have to adjust the hinges and striker anyway

Bill

Here's a lesson I learned the hard way. When removing the doors on my 55 second I broke the heads off a few of the bolts going into the door. It was a lot of work drilling them out and re-tapping the holes, and I hope never to have to do it again.

For my money penetrating oil combined with heating the fasteners up with an acetylene torch a few times and letting them cool works well.

Heck even Chip Foose recommended doing it on one of the many shows he has been on..Joe