Nightmare Door.

[toomanyprojects]

Fortunately, some time in the distant past the drivers door on my Spit was replaced for a good 2nd hand one which is still in pretty good nick and doesn't need any welding.

Unfortunately the passenger door wasn't.

Here it is,  :'(

[toomanyprojects]

It's not bad enough to justify replacing, but it's going to be a load of work, which is anoying as I really want the car on the road soon.

I'm particularly not looking forward to this bit.

[toomanyprojects]

So, I had no option other than to get straight to work, cut out the old

[toomanyprojects]

and start welding in the new.

I've a bad feeling this is going to take ages, I really want everything ready to start prepping next weekend...

[Spitfire1500]

Ouch!

Still, it's getting somewhere now - good job with the welding too.

David

[toomanyprojects]

Hopefully, I'll be posting another update after this evenings session and there'll be loads more progress. I managed to get around the corner before I finished yesterday, it'll need a little bit of filler, but hopefully no more than a couple of mm thick and it should be sturcturally sound....

It's fiddly work, at least the bottom of the door can be done as one long section.

[toomanyprojects]

Another productive evening in the garage, onto my 5th patch already but as you can see there's loads more to go. I not been looking forward to this job for years, typically now that I'm getting on with it I find out it could have been worse....

Pretty pleased with the results if I say so myself, it's going to need some filler of course but I don't think it'll end up to far from it's original shape!

[Spitfire1500]

Nice to see some progress with the doors - something I am going to have to look forward to when I start fixing my doors up!

David

[toomanyprojects]

A total of 9 patch pieces and the bottom of the door's nearly finished. It'll need a little tidying and some filler but I'm pretty pleased.

Now just the fiddly bit at the top back and then it's on to fitting the new front wings which arrived last week...

[Deleted User]

bloody hell, i wasnt as brave as you my doors are not nearly as bad as that, yet i decided to scrap them and got a nice shiney set of californian doors which im just about to start spraying.

Nice welding, wish mine were getting anywhere near that so i can do the rear wings.

[chrisspe]

one of my doors is about that bad and the driver's if far worse, still planning on welding them atm

[rotoflex]

I admire your work & envy your ability with welding.

You'll paint the exterior of the door, but what about the backside?  Will the exposed welds inside be places where new rust can take hold?  Will you train fishing worms to get in there & paint?

[Deleted User]

surely just pour some waxoil in there.

[toomanyprojects]

What I plan to do, aprroximately, is to sand down and treat any intermal surface rust as well as possible and then brush paint as well as possible with blue Hammerite (which conviniently happens to be close to French Blue). Then once the doors are resprayed I'l give a spray of Dynax S-50 (Wax Oil alternative) all around the inside of the frame/door skin seam.

I've already rust treated the inside of the door skin flange where I've had to lift it.

[toomanyprojects]

Finally apart from a little more grinding and employing some eastern European labour to help me with a little filler it's finished.

This patch took me ages to make, it's not perfect but it's near enough.

[toomanyprojects]

So here's the finished result from both sides, I had to make 12 seperate patches in total, now I can get on with fitting the new front wings to the bonnet

[toomanyprojects]

Glad it's done.

[rotoflex]

Demoralize us all with your damned competence, then!

[toomanyprojects]

If I only had pictures of some of my efforts from 14 years ago, you would see that my bodywork skills have not always been so hot.

In those days my welding needed to be hidden under a thick layer of underseal to have any hope of being approved at the MOT station.....

The most important lessons I have learnt with welding are

1: You can't weld to paint.
2: You cant weld to rust.
3: Paint doesn't provide a good earth.
4: Rust doesn't provide a good earth.
5: Keep the welder tip clean.

Get those right and you 70% of the way there....

[Spitfire1500]

Nice job with the door there - I am going to be going as far as stripping the paint, rust treating, filling, priming and painting my doors (sanding in between!) but nothing more. I have some fibre-glass doors that I still haven't got round to picking up but the idea is, I sort out my steel doors and keep hold of them even if I do use my fibre glass ones at the end.

David