The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Opening up inside of doors. OK or Bad?

I'm progressing along with my 54 truck. I want to open up the doors a little so I can install "Second Skin" insullation panels against the outside door sheet metal as well as have more access when installing Electric Life electric windows. I personally don't see any problem as long as I don't remove inside door metal that needs to support something from the inside. Does anyone have any thought about my doing this? The entire door will have be upholstered so the openings will not show.

I'd make a better effort to do what you need to without cutting holes in the door.
If the doors needed more holes in them they would have come that way.

Grigg

Well, that answer doesn't solve my problem. With electric windows going in and Dakota Digital Shooters being installed as well as sound dampening material going against the outer sheet metal there is a need for more access. God (GM) certainly did not build the truck to accommodate everything folks are doing to them in the "HiPro Shop" area of these forums. Appreciate your thought though.

I was thinking about doing that i don't see a problem, but i would tack the piece back in place to help prevent the door from twisting over time.
Great job on your truck.Are those the original doors modified ?

Then it sounds like you already decided to make some more holes even if in the long run it's a poor idea...

Can you make them appear factory, round ends or corners and flange the edges to the inside? Or even make nice removable covers.
Not having sharp edges or square corners will reduce the likelihood of cracks starting.

I don’t know what brand of Vibration dampener you are using but most quality dampeners will dampen without putting it on 100% of the area. What I mean is you should be able to place only a small amount of the dampener on the inside of the door and achieve the results you want. I saw a demonstration of vibration dampening once. They had two cymbals, one with a one inch square piece of material on it and the other with nothing. There was an incredible difference in the dampening with only the one inch square piece.

Here's what I would suggest. Don't cut the entire inside skin off. The reason is because it adds rigidity to the door and if you cut it off, even if you bolt it back on, it's going to change. Door skins are tricky business.

Instead, consider cutting "access panels" into the inside door skin. That way, there's enough of the door skin to maintain original rigidity.

As far as insulating your door, try this. Since you're having the inside of the doors custom-upholstered anyway, then apply something like Lizard Skin to the exposed interior door skin, and also apply either that or whatever sound-deadening product you want on the back side of the door upholstery also.

I will end up doing this myself. Because all the floorboard and firewall insulation in the world is not going to help much if the doors are still like hollow steel drums.