My passenger door has some really good collision damage and I have so far not found a replacement so I thought I would try messing with it to see if I can salvage it until I find a good replacement. This is what it looked like after already grinding/sanding off quite a bit of filler.
It doesn't show up well in the photos, but the leading edge got jammed pretty hard and the bondo master that worked his magic on the rest of the car did the same to the door. The passenger quarter panel and front fender also had/have really good damage too. Anyway, the forward door edge (where the skin wraps around the door chassis) was about 1/4" thick...
If you look closely you can see that the door skin doesn't fold around flat anymore. It now folds around into a V shape.
The first few inches of the front of the door from top to bottom had some serious dents, holes, and hammer blow marks all covered with bondo up to about 3/8's thick. I got tired of the dust after a bit so took some filler out with a chisel.
The inside of the door in that area was still bent and dented but they didn't fill that and somehow managed to get the door mounted and functioning. The door gap (didn't get picures apparently) was pretty wide at the rear of the door and almost touching in front.
So I came up with the bright idea to try and use a piece off the front door from my 4 door parts rig to see if I could fix the inner portion of the door and maybe be able to work the original skin a little better when it would be more exposed. Here are the doors on the operating table...
The pictures don't really show how badly the original door is bent in these areas. My plan is to remove a lot of the door frame from below the hinges, to the forward edge where the skin folds over. It doesn't seem to be too structurally important and any visible welds would be in an area where you would really have to look for them. If nothing else it will give me some practice.
First few ugly cuts...
and I am already learning...
First plan of attack was to cut straight along the 90 degree bend below the flat that the hinges bolt too. Then I discovered that there is a plate under the hinge areas (that I had missed by feeling around inside the door). Then, after some more cutting it dawned on me that it would be better to leave more material on the horizontal part as I could likely flatten out most of it with a hammer and dolly and it would enable me to put a gusset under it when I weld in the new piece. Although, the more I remove, the more door skin gets exposed which would greatly help with trying to do a better job of getting it closer to its proper shape. Again, you can't tell from the pictures but the door skins is caved in pretty good where you can see the inside of it, and it isn't flat where it is folded over. Those bondo turds are where there were holes drilled in the skin.
As always, I am open to advice and ideas.
