Door repairs

Its too cold for painting so I decided to work on some of the more mobile parts that I can bring inside.  First up are the doors...

Here's the front door shells I got from Arizona off a 59 Biscayne.  There's some minor surface rust in the usual areas but they are cleaning up nicely.  The passeneger door was dinged up pretty good in shipping so I might replace the bottom half of the door skin.  I thought the doors on Chevys and Pontiacs's were the same but there's a slight difference.  The holes for the molding clips look bigger on the Chevy doors.





For now I'm concentrating on sandblasting all the parts for the passenger side.  Since my garage now looks like a sand storm went through it, I'll do what I can for the other side too.

Does anyone have a service manual for the 4 door sedans???

I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the glass out of the rear door.  I don't want to chance damaging the glass while sandblasting so it must come out!  Grrrrrrr.

The front door cleaned up perfectly.  But I guess it was colder in my garage than I thought because the moisture froze in the air lines!  LOL

Michael…..If you haven't done so already, lower the window and then remove the crank, door handle, arm rest, door upholstery card, and water deflector paper. It is easier to remove the glass if you also remove the inner metal trim around the window opening (called garnish molding.) The rear glass run channel ( the part that the glass slides up and down in) then needs to be removed. It's attached at the bottom with a nut that can be loosened through the large access hole in the inner door frame. The upper attaching screw is located on the end of the door frame above the latch. There are clips in the window opening frame that hold the upper part of the run channel in place. Carefully disengage the channel from these, and pull it up and inward to remove it.

If you look into the large access hole you can see the lower edge of the window and sash. The sash is attached to the "lower sash cam" with two screws. I don't know why they call it a cam, but it's the channel with the TWO regulator rollers in it. At any rate the rear screw can be reached through the large access hole, and the front screw can be removed through a small hole just below the door handle mechanism.

Once you've done all this, reach in and raise the lower sash enough to grab the glass at the top. Now the glass with its sash can be removed by lifting it up and inward. You may have to jiggle it some, but it should come out. By the way, "jiggle" is a highly technical shop term, to be used only by certified professional personnel. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME……John

Thanks John!  Somehow I figured you'd know...  ;-)

Damn!  I was so close...  Do you know how many times I looked at that screw above the door latch wondering... what the *censored* do you do!?

I'll try again and let you know.

Just to clarify...  The fuzzy U channel and the window should come out together but the metal window frame stays in place right?

Michael, I have a 1959 Body Shop Manual with pictures if it would help. Give me your fax number and I will send you copies. Jim

That would be greatly appreciated Jim! I emailed you my fax number. Let me know if you don't receive it...

My email has changed and I can't seem to change it on my profile. Try sending me a PM.

Michael…..no, the fuzzy "U" channel (called the rear glass run channel) comes out first so you have room for the window and its sash to clear the window frame. Just to be clear, the window glass is surrounded by a metal frame. That is referred to as the sash. The bottom sash is attached to the sash cam by two screws which must be removed to separate the the window from the regulator. The window frame is actually the metal opening for the window that is the upper part of the door……John

What I posted before is what the factory recommends as the method for removing the glass. If you find it difficult to do, you might want to remove the front glass run channel also. This is done by removing the screws at the front end (hinge side) of the door frame, and the clips in the upper frame.

Woohoo, got it out.  Thanks guys!

The rear door is pretty rough on the bottom. I'm waiting to see how it looks after sandblasting.










As to getting the glass out this shows how the rear glass run channel comes out.  I had to slide it down slightly to get the upper edge out of the corner, then pull it in and up to get it out.

Michael…..opps, forgot about that. Only the hardtops and convertibles have the sash completely surrounding the glass for support. The sedans don't need it because they are supported by the entire window opening. I hope this didn't cause you any confusion. Be careful with that rear glass run channel. They can be repaired, but they're hard to find replacements. Looks like you will at least have to replace the lower part of the door skin. Good luck with it……John

It's all good John.  Your tips got me pointed in the right direction, and Jim's pictures gave me the final tips on getting it out.

Yeah, the bottom half of the door doesn't look so good.  I'm tempted to replace the door as a whole.  The other side isn't much better.

I'll decide what to do when I see just how bad it really is after sandblasting.

Sand... sand... everywhere sand!  All I need now is a small pool of water in my garage and I'll have the perfect indoor beach!  ROFL

I'm slowly plugging away at all the sandblasting.  The rear passenger door is stripped down and sandblasted.  John, as I expected you were right, I pretty much have to replace the bottom half of the door skin but there's also some structural repairs I need to do too.  I guess its time to find out just how good my welding has gotten.

I expected most of this but was hoping it wasn't so bad.  The door skin repairs are going to be my biggest challenge.  If I screw it up then I buy replacements, which is what I probably should just do now, but I'm stubborn and now's as good a time as any to see if my welding is good enough for this.



The door fin cleaned up very nicely



This is where the door handle mounts



And the bottom half of the door is a mess

After our unusually long winter it's sooooo hard locking myself in the garage but I did manage to get some repairs done to the rear passenger door this week.

This is where I left off last fall...



and now to repair this mess

Finishing off this corner was definitely a challenge but not really hard as much as it was time consuming.  I've been doing this in two stages.  One being the flat section the door skin is crimps onto, and the other the rounded edge of the bottom of the door.  This piece looks small but I spent a whole night getting the curved section to line up just right because of the dual curves.  It not only curves around the bottom of the door, but it curves out to meet the flat piece.





And picking up on the other corner where I left off last fall...





Next up, the long bottom edge...

I've been busy the last few days.  First up the long bottom edge of the door shell.

Out with the old rot...




and in with the new...








Now that I've rebuilt the door shell its time to get the rest of the door skin off and clean up these welds from inside.  I would have taken the door skin off anyway to repair the it too.






On to the door skin...








I'll replace the rusted support behind the door handle later.  For now it will help prevent warping of the door skin while I repair this.








And of course its a holiday weekend and I'm running out of gas for the MIG welder so I guess I'm going to be forced to relax this weekend.  :-)

The Chevy replacements for the front doors were still down to bare metal after sandblasting 2 winters ago.  Surprisingly there's no surface rust starting yet.  I've stored them with the other sandblasted parts in a spare bedroom with low humidity.  :-)

I've painted the outside with self etching primer.  I will finish scraping off the old undercoating inside the doors later.





While I was at it I coated the inside of the fin off the rear passenger side door with POR-15 and used self etching primer on the outside.  The clip on holders and nuts were soaked in Eastwood's "Fast Etch" which removes the rust and leaves a nice protective zinc coating behind.





Now back to that rear door skin.  This one's going to be a bit of a challenge.  Due to Father Time, rust, and who knows what else, the thickness of the metal on the door skin is less than 18 gauge and more than 20 gauge.  I'm using 18 gauge sheet metal for replacements which means I have to blend the seams of the replacement pieces into the rest of the door.

The bottom of the door skin has tons of pin holes and it's straight across.  Hey, I can do this!  :-)

First to cut off the bottom and test fit the replacement panel.



Ok, now how do I weld all the way across this and not warp it?  Start off by staggering a lot of spot welds across the seam pausing in between each one to let the heat dissipate.  And of course it helps if you have a nice heat sink to help dissipate the heat.  The copper plate dissipates the heat from the spot weld very fast and the angle iron behind it acts as the heat sink for the copper plate.





My girlfriend told me yesterday that I was neglecting her. I jokingly pointed at the car and said "How can that be when I've been here with her all day?" Needless to say she wasn't laughing!

I'm off to the florist this morning...

Good job  



My girlfriend told me yesterday that I was neglecting her.  I jokingly pointed at the car and said "How can that be when I've been here with her all day?"  Needless to say she wasn't laughing!

I'm off to the florist this morning...


strange ... I have the same problem here  

I've pretty much finished up the bottom of the rear door skin.  Folding over the edge of the new sheet metal was an interesting challenge.  As I'm on a bit of a budget here, there was no way I was going to buy a specialized tool to do this that's $300 or more!  Thankfully I've got a good head for figuring out problems.  So here's what I did.  I took a pair of channel lock pliers, and a short piece of 1/4 inch square steel stock and created my own tool.  If I start off by leaving the channel locks set to wide (imagine setting them in the groove for a 1 inch pipe) and use them to start bending the flat sheet metal over the edge of the door.  Then change to the next groove making the gap in them a little smaller and fold the sheet metal over a little more. Keep making the gap smaller and fold over the sheet metal a little more at a time.  Granted, had I bought the tool to do this it would have been done quicker but for about $5 I made what you see here using an old pair of channel lock pliers I already had.





And here is how I used them

Spring has arrived and I finally got some time to work on that door skin some more.  What a pain it is turning out to be.  The sheet metal is very thin and if my welds don't blow through the metal they heat it up enough to warp it all to hell.  Thankfully I've come to love the metal shrinking disk I picked up for my grinder last year.  It's more accurate and easier to control than using a torch to shrink the metal.  Over the past few days I've roughed out the repairs on the front edge of the rear passenger side door.

It's taken me weeks to fix all the warping from the welding.  I've been working with a metal "shrinking disk" which works sooooo much better than a torch for metal shrinking.

The door skin is finally ready for final sandblasting and primer.  On a positive note I actually got to put something back together (even if only temporarily) for the first time in many months!  The last pics with the doors on are just to help align the new rocker panel I'm getting ready to put on.

Unfortunately I haven't done much else.  A little sandblasting of small parts in a blast cabinet in the machine shop where I work and that's about it.

It has been a long HOT summer here and my garage was over 100 degrees most days when I came home in the afternoon.  Since my neighbor calls the police when I make too much noise I do most of my work with the garage doors closed.  At 100 degrees with no a/c that's just too much so I got nothing done all summer.  Its finally cooling off now so hopefully I can get back to work on the car.

Hi,I've done the same on my 60 Chevy 4dr sedan.Got 3 replacement doors but they arrived all damaged.Got it all fixed though.Then sold it and bought my 59 Catalina 2dr HT.MORE work than the Chevy but worth it.
Just in case,I still have a brand new set of factory green tinted side glass,8 pieces.Also have a used tinted green back glass with good rubber.Plan was to install it in the Chevy but when I sold the car,the buyer wasn't interested in it.Although the clear glass on that car was horrible.

Michayos wrote:

It's taken me weeks to fix all the warping from the welding.  I've been working with a metal "shrinking disk" which works sooooo much better than a torch for metal shrinking.

The door skin is finally ready for final sandblasting and primer.  On a positive note I actually got to put something back together (even if only temporarily) for the first time in many months!  The last pics with the doors on are just to help align the new rocker panel I'm getting ready to put on.

Unfortunately I haven't done much else.  A little sandblasting of small parts in a blast cabinet in the machine shop where I work and that's about it.

It has been a long HOT summer here and my garage was over 100 degrees most days when I came home in the afternoon.  Since my neighbor calls the police when I make too much noise I do most of my work with the garage doors closed.  At 100 degrees with no a/c that's just too much so I got nothing done all summer.  Its finally cooling off now so hopefully I can get back to work on the car.