The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Door Repair Question?

I have my passenger door mounted and lined up right now. I did this to make sure the cab corner I just replaced fit right and everything lined up. I need to replace a couple inches of the door bottom, so here is the question: should I do the door work with it attached to cab so I can make sure the fit is correct or take it off and lay it on my saw horses? Any and all advice will be appreciated.

Does the lower door repair include the inner door or only the outer skin?

Robert, it will include both so I reckon I also will need advise on which to do first inner or outer.

In this case, my preference is to leave the outer skin intact, but sand the edges of the skin where needed to release it from the inner, then you can cut out the old inner and replace it, using the outer skin to verify proper contour alignment before welding. Then replace outer skin as needed. If the door matches up nicely prior to removal from the truck, you can measure up from the bottom of the door skin (before the step I mentioned above) and mark a reference line. Then when installing the new skin you can again measure to this reference line to position the bottom edge. This would work well if doing this on a bench. If your gaps are not where you'd like them/need some work for better consistency, then I'd suggest leaving the door on the truck for outer skin fitment, so you can align to adjacent panels. In this instance, be sure to locate the panel for consistent gaps before making your final trimming.

Thanks Robert, I took the door off today and carefully cut out the bad metal on the lower inside. I finally got the new piece trimmed and fit. It will be a few days before I have time to tackle the outside skin that needs repair.

Kenny,

I will be doing this repair soon myself. I, for one, would very much benefit from your experience as you take this on and, as everyone, would really like to see pics if you can arrange that as you go.

At a minimum, please let us know how it goes. Sounds like Robert's given you a great procedure.


Best,

Jim

Jim

I had originally planned to do this procedure this week however a death in the wife's family has put this off till next week. I will document the procedure and hopefully it will go well

Thanks Kenny,

Jim

I finally got the inner and outer lower repairs to my passenger door finished. I hope the pictures help. I took Roberts advise and took a lot of measurements before I cut to make sure it lined up. I am a rookie at this but I'm happy with the result.

http://s1142.beta.photobucket.com/user/kennymartin2/library/Door%20Repair

Wow, Kenny. Great job.

The white-looking material, is that weld-through primer or?? And, I can't tell, but did you use a butt joint on the door skin? I like the leveling/alignment shims you made from scrap. Going to use that idea myself.

Who did you buy the patch panels from? And were you happy with them? Lastly, solid wire welds with gas?

Thanks for the updates and photos. They will really help me.

Best,

Jim

Jim,

I'll try my best to explain how and what I did

First I took Roberts advise and ground the edges off the skin. Next I started cutting the inside to get to good metal, being careful to cut inside where I think I want my line to be. I found pretty bad surface rust a little higher inside than I thought but it was a little bit less than the repair panel

Once I had the door cut back to good metal I trimmed the repair panel to fit and I did use butt joints. While the door bottom was off I thought this a good time to coat the inside of the door with POR 15. I also removed the EDP from inside the patch panel and coated it with direct to metal epoxy primer. Note: the panel did require some reforming on the edges.

Fitted the panel with clamps and used some used some pieces of sheet metal fastened with sheet metal screws to keep proper alignment until I can get the panel tacked in. I use a little Miller MIG with solid wire and gas to carefully tack the panel in. Once it was tacked really well I removed the straps and clamps. Then I just kept working the tacks until it was completely welded making sure I didn't overheat and warp.

I ground off the weld on the outside and then cleaned and coated the inside with epoxy primer.

I had to cut higher on the skin than I originally thought. When I got the inside cut out, I could see where the lower skin had been bondoed during a repaint to hide rust but it was still a little smaller than the repair panel. I used the same procedure to prepare, clamp and weld I used on the inside

I bought the panels from Classis Parts of America and they were about like all of them I've used, they require a little work to make them fit. I've come to expect that now

One other thing, I took a lot of measurements to try and make sure I repaired the door to the correct dimensions and curvature.

Thanks again, Kenny.

I will use this procedure when I do mine. I decided to throw my really rotten doors onto my truck just so I could do test drives down the road. Not pretty, but needed to do the runs to confirm engine repair issues.

My doors may be too far gone, but I won't know until I pull the skins and bottoms off. I suspect the upper part of my skins are stretched too far from multiple impacts and I know for sure I need to replace the hinge brackets.

So, long road. But your work helped me. Thank you for taking the time to post this detail.

Jim

Kenny, great write up, I'll be doing this one day. Did you have to crimp or fold over the outer skin to the inner? If so, what did you use to do that?

Eric, I did have to fold the outer skin over the inner. I took a light hammer and got it started then I used my wide jawed vise grips to carefully work it down

Before I did all this, I drilled about a half dozen holes in the outer so I could weld with my MIG when I had it folded down then ground smooth.

Kenny