Spent some time last weekend and today working on my doors. My driver door is in relatively good condition for a 55 year old part, however there is some rust issues. The driver door had some areas where the metal was peeled back by the previous owner, maybe to investigate the rust damage? anyways, I cut out the damaged area and shaped some sheet metal to fill the holes, I wasnt too thrilled on how it turned out, but its alot better than it was... nothing a little bondo cant solve... Shaping the crease in the middle of the door was frustrating. The more productive task was replacing the lower hinge pocket on my passenger door. it was completely rotted out, but somehow the inner and outer skins are in surprisingly good condition. Thus I had no interest of cutting the skin to repair the hinge. I opted to instead drill out the spotwelds and spotweld the new lower hinge in. I know its debatable as to whether the hinge could be strong enough without a full weld, but my theory is simple... the original pocket was spot welded on... why cant the replacement be? I drilled out the spotwelds, and when i was done with that i drilled about 15 more holes and filled them all. The hinge pocket feals SOLID but the real test will be when I hang the door. May have to reinforce more later...
Here are some photos of my door work... remember, I have 10 years of mechanical knowledge, but minimal patch/panel repair... so be easy on me! hah...
Driver door skin repair:
Passenger Door Pocket Repair
Ordered replacement Hinge pocket from Classicparts.com
