57 356 A mild resto

[merbesfield]

[JTR70]

That lower door skin patch will try your patience. Unavoidable heat warp just wreaks havoc with such a near flat unsupported run. Then compound it by not getting past all the old damage? This is pretty much the outcome you can expect every time Mark. The only way I can realistically see raising that weld joint and getting a stable panel is to heat shrink the entire run with a torch. Cold shrinking with a hammer dolly would be nearly impossible and it will "oil can" all over the place. You won't be able to torch heat it from the outside either. If you touched that with a torch from the outside it would go crazy and sink in deeper. You have to be able to both heat and hammer it from the inside but you now have the frame of the door in your way.
In a perfect world the easiest way to address that would be clamp the skin to a welding table then heat shrink the run at will. You don't have that luxury at this point so you're stuck with spooning it out the best that you can. OR start over again, cut it back out and make your own lower section and go higher into the door crown which will get you past all the old damage and will proved a much more stable welding area.

As for the lower alignment issues your having I learned the hard way that each time you add a new piece especially substructer you have to repeatedly test fit it to the car and make sure its within striking distance (also taking the thickness of the eventual skin thickness into account) before you commit to welding it all together fully. You might get lucky every blue moon and hit it right on the money but that hasn't happened to me yet. John is right, you'll have to relief cut the door bottom just ahead of this flange and pull it out level and then back fill it. Like I said this stuff will "test your metal" excuse the pun...
Justin

33

[John Pierce]

Hi Mark,

It looks like the door metal shrank during welding due to the heat, which is very common. It needs to be stretched to bring it out. You can definitely hammer and dolly a weld. The issue you have to be careful about is stretching too much resulting in oil-canning though.

The bottom edge of the door is a different issue. As the front, rear, and top of the door fit well then you have a contour problem due to welding it in that location. The only fix would be to cut the bottom edge, bring it out and reweld it, unfortunately. Sorry about that.

Good luck,

John

[merbesfield]

More advice needed. Trying to break all these questions up into separate posts. Because the old patch was huge/thick, they must have adjusted the door bc the bottom is now about 4mm back from the original rocker/threshold. How do I adjust the bottom edge of the door out? I know weather strip will push a little, but not this much. The top edges of the door are perfect. It is only the bottom that needs to come out.

[merbesfield]

[merbesfield]

[merbesfield]

[John Pierce]

Mark,

I found it easier to make the patch panel that you need. Look at my build to see what I did. If you purchase a patch panel it will always have to be modified to fit. It's easier to make a template and make your own which will fit the area you need without waste or frustration. I do not like the RD metal as it is too thick and galvanized which gives off toxic fumes (irregardless of what RD claims) and it sputters when welded.

Cheers,

John

[merbesfield]

[merbesfield]

Tom, good luck with that. I was so lucky this car was never in on accident. Almost perfect panels and gaps other than normal rust. There is lots of good info here. My front fenders is my next and final rust repair.

[Red911]

Congratulations on your door rebuilding. I am just starting my door rebuilding, so your post and others help me a lot.

My issue, which I will post soon is the passenger front fender and the passenger door were in an accident and therefore, the front of the door gaps are not correct.

Thanks again, and great job.

Tom

[merbesfield]

[JTR70]

Glad to see you back at it Mark! Happy New year!

[John Pierce]

Mark,

Welcome back and Happy New Year! The repair looks nice. A little bit at a time will get you there. It's a long process to do it correctly.

[merbesfield]

Happy New Year everyone. I just looked at my last post and it has been almost one year since I last posted work on my car and my door project. I guess life just gets in the way of you let it. Well I finally forced myself into the shop today. First day of the year and I had no idea that it had been literally almost a year since my last visit. Hopefully it will not be another year. Well the good news is I got the passenger side door about 90% done. I mounted the new lower patch panel. Seems like I had the door on and off the car 100 times. It is now tack welded in place and mostly crimped over the edges. I left it up a little and hosed the joint with Zero Rust. Once it dries all I have to do is bang it home. I still have to do the finish welding along the seam and that will have to go slow. The door is a mess from the shoddy PO patch that was brass brazed over the door panel. As a result the panel was quite puckered out so I am sure copious amounts of lead or filler will ultimately be required to smooth things out. But we now have solid metal and zero rust.