On with the bodywork now so first job is a dry fit of all doors and wings front and back, boot and bonnet to check the alignment. The initial alignment is pretty good, I will need to do some fine adjustments after everything has been repaired and welded. This post will only cover the front doors.
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| O/S/F door showing extent of corrosion before stripping door down |
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| Removing the door panel is quite straight forward, first remove the window winder handle by pushing down the black plastic trim piece with a couple of screwdrivers then tap out the securing pin with a small punch |
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The door panel is now easily removed it is held in by push in clips and a couple of metal tags. This door panel has been off before, there is a spring missing behind the winder handle and the panel access covers are missing
Repair panels in place to see if they will cover the extent of the corrosion, here we have the inner panel with rubber seal holder and end plate closing panels
Outer door skin in place, more than enough here to repair the door so on with stripping down
Some careful measuring to make sure the door stays the same size and the swage fold stays in the same place, thanks to Graham Morton for this tip. If you've not worked it out yet the swage is 165mm from the bottom of the door |
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Window regulator removal, this is held in place with four bolts, to remove the glass from the regulator there are a couple of folded over spring clips and a horseshoe type clamp which all clamp the glass in place with felt pads. The glass slides out of the top when the top seals have been removed and the regulator comes out of the access holes
Glass runners removed, each held in place with a two M7 nuts accessed from a couple of holes in the outside of the door |
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| Interior door handle and facia are removed by undoing a 24mm chrome nut and turning the handle 90 degrees, the lock rod can now be unhooked |
Good to see you are back into it Colin ;)
ReplyDeleteLook forward to your progress, some nasty rust in those doors.
The repair panels are quite good in my experience, as well as your measurements you will have fixed points of reference for the outer lower skin left and right where it lines up with the upper skin, if that makes sense?
Cheers
Chris
Aussiefrogs
Hi Chris
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, progress is slow this time of year - trouble is you can't do much outside the garage it seems to be continually cold and raining and goes dark early afternoon :(
The rust on this door is typical of them all, this is mainly due to having lived its life near Blackpool on the coast of the Irish Sea. Salt is the killer here it's in the sea air and on the roads in Winter and there is precious little time for the car to dry off properly.
As far as the measurement go, am I missing something or do I need to measure something else?
Kind Regards and Happy Christmas,
Colin.
Hi Colin,
DeleteWith regard to measurements, if you look at say a front door square on you will see that there is an angle along the front edge whilst the rear is more vertical - a wedging if you like. It makes more critical where you cut through the old skin and will determine the depth below the swage as you fit the new skin to line up left and right to the upper skin.
I found that laying the new skin on the door with the fold held firmly along the bottom, I could scribe a line across the door skin then deduct the joddle/joggle to give me the cut line - as with all things measure and check twice, cut once. Definitely use your measurements, then double check by laying up the lower skin before cutting. There is leeway, in that you can adjust the side seam fold to give a nice smooth transition from new to old.
For cutting, I clamped a piece of flexible timber as a straight edge guide and used a 1mm cutting disc on the trusty angle grinder. Once cut you need to remove about 25mm of the tar insulation on the inside of the skin.
I've probably made it sound more complex than it is in practice :)
Have fun
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris
ReplyDeleteI understand what you mean now, I just need to take my time and not rush into things and like you say measure twice and cut once, good advice - thanks.
I will post the updates on here,
Regards
Colin.
Hi Colin,
ReplyDeleteI've just subscribed to your blog, keep the good work up!!
My D needs work and it's great reading of your progress and gleaning from your advice.
Reading up on how you removed the door trim is most interesting as I intend to do this job, I've not worked out how to remove the top trim though. How's this done and will you be taking it off at some point, your photos and captions tell a 1,000 words!
Cheers,
George
www.mypallas.net
Hi George,
ReplyDeleteThanks for subscribing and for your comments. Those top trims are really awkward, I will post something about them on here later, they will be coming off as I intend to have the door chemically stripped. I also read your blog - great work, hope to see you at a meeting at some time.
RegarDS
Colin.