Repair UPS damage to a door.

[JT1]

I now have a growing collection of used Mustang doors in the garage. If I only had a magic wand to combine the parts of different doors, lol.

I don't want to use a repro door as they have differences in the frame. I'd prefer not to do a whole skin as that repair will be obvious when done as the skins have differences in the shape of what gets folded over, and I don't have a way to duplicate the exact look of the spot welds. A folded over patch in the lower corner would be fine as that area is real hard to see anyway.

Anyway, the most promising door is a door I got from an online seller. Seller did as good a job packing as I think you can do. When I first got the door, I thought it only had one banged up corner, on the front lower where I was going to have to patch the skin anyway. A few Minutes with a hammer and dolly and it looked good enough to wait to finish after the skin was off the frame in that corner.

Then while disassembling I realized they also dinged the top back corner. they bent the top down, and also bent on the door handle area,

Here are the pictures:

Why I like this door only the tiniest, and I mean 1/8" diameter of through rust in the frame:



What I don't know if I can fix, this is after I worked on it . I didn't do anything in the door handle area as I don't want to make it worse. I tried to line up the reflections to show the bent spots:

The top is still bent down about an 1/8" It is hard to move it up without destroying the concave shape:


In addition the the top being bent down, the edge is also bent in:


It is also bent in at the bottom of the handle, leaving the raised part pushed in:


Any thoughts on how to fix? I really don't want to remove the skin in this area. There is some access to the area from inside the door, but I couldn't get a hammer in there with any room to swing it. I don't think the area right at the handle can be fixed with filler as that shape would be hard to duplicate, and there needs to be strength there since that is where the handle gets pushed and pulled. I think if I was as strong as the incredible hulk, I could reach in there and push the dented part back out with my fingers and thumb, but alas, I'm not that strong.

I think I need a "Real" old timey body guy who knows how to fix stuff, any idea where to find him? Anyone on here make house calls to chester county PA?

[Len]

Any thoughts on how to fix? I really don't want to remove the skin in this area. There is some access to the area from inside the door, but I couldn't get a hammer in there with any room to swing it. I don't think the area right at the handle can be fixed with filler as that shape would be hard to duplicate, and there needs to be strength there since that is where the handle gets pushed and pulled. I think if I was as strong as the incredible hulk, I could reach in there and push the dented part back out with my fingers and thumb, but alas, I'm not that strong.

I think I need a "Real" old timey body guy who knows how to fix stuff, any idea where to find him? Anyone on here make house calls to chester county PA?

Hey, I'm not that far away but I think you could probably do it. I'd use carefully placed pins from my stud welder to pull on the right places while tapping with a chisel or pointed body hammer. You should be able to get it real close then finesse it with some filler.

[Henry]

I now have a growing collection of used Mustang doors in the garage. If I only had a magic wand to combine the parts of different doors, lol.

I don't want to use a repro door as they have differences in the frame. I'd prefer not to do a whole skin as that repair will be obvious when done as the skins have differences in the shape of what gets folded over, and I don't have a way to duplicate the exact look of the spot welds. A folded over patch in the lower corner would be fine as that area is real hard to see anyway.

Anyway, the most promising door is a door I got from an online seller. Seller did as good a job packing as I think you can do. When I first got the door, I thought it only had one banged up corner, on the front lower where I was going to have to patch the skin anyway. A few Minutes with a hammer and dolly and it looked good enough to wait to finish after the skin was off the frame in that corner.

Then while disassembling I realized they also dinged the top back corner. they bent the top down, and also bent on the door handle area,

Here are the pictures:

Why I like this door only the tiniest, and I mean 1/8" diameter of through rust in the frame:

What I don't know if I can fix, this is after I worked on it . I didn't do anything in the door handle area as I don't want to make it worse. I tried to line up the reflections to show the bent spots:

The top is still bent down about an 1/8" It is hard to move it up without destroying the concave shape:

Any thoughts on how to fix? I really don't want to remove the skin in this area. There is some access to the area from inside the door, but I couldn't get a hammer in there with any room to swing it. I don't think the area right at the handle can be fixed with filler as that shape would be hard to duplicate, and there needs to be strength there since that is where the handle gets pushed and pulled. I think if I was as strong as the incredible hulk, I could reach in there and push the dented part back out with my fingers and thumb, but alas, I'm not that strong.

I think I need a "Real" old timey body guy who knows how to fix stuff, any idea where to find him? Anyone on here make house calls to chester county PA?

For the top side you could still get a body hammer in there. Take the head off a cheapy body hammer and hold the head inside the door, then push the handle back on and tap away.

I don't have a like door in front of me but there is usually access from the inside of the door at the rear of the handle area. If not, then consider drilling a 3/8 hole on the inside metal of the door so you can stick a proper long punch through and tap the face side damage away. There is always a way.

If you do have a stud welder then you can use it like Len said. This is one of those occasions where the stud welder pays for itself. They are well worth the investment.

Henry

[SamG]

Too bad you're not close to me...I've got 2 or 3 sets of nice rust-free doors for the 65/66 cars. I wouldn't want to ship any of them though, for fear of exactly what happened to your door.

I think Len and Henry are right. There's nothing there that won't fix, and actually nothing major, but it would be of benefit to have a nice car to bolt the door to for lining up that back/top edge around the door handle.

Is that door damaged around the door latch? I mean where the latch attaches with the three Phillips screws, are they broken out? That is a very common problem on those cars and there is an easy fix that involves oversize countersunk washers. The correct way to do it though is to weld the broken area(s) back in place and grind the welds back down flat. It's a challenge to do correctly.

SamG

[JT1]

Too bad you're not close to me...I've got 2 or 3 sets of nice rust-free doors for the 65/66 cars. I wouldn't want to ship any of them though, for fear of exactly what happened to your door.

I think Len and Henry are right. There's nothing there that won't fix, and actually nothing major, but it would be of benefit to have a nice car to bolt the door to for lining up that back/top edge around the door handle.

Is that door damaged around the door latch? I mean where the latch attaches with the three Phillips screws, are they broken out? That is a very common problem on those cars and there is an easy fix that involves oversize countersunk washers. The correct way to do it though is to weld the broken area(s) back in place and grind the welds back down flat. It's a challenge to do correctly.

SamG

Yes Sam, you are correct, it has the broken latch bolts. I planned to weld them up. Now I won't bother with that until I can get the rest of it corrected.

As for shipping the door, the mistake that was made was shipping the whole door complete with contents. I think and empty door shell can be shipped without damage a lot easier.

I know I had two repops shipped to me that arrived without damage. Too bad they aren't usable for other reasons. The way they did it was, they were in a box with a square of foam at each corner, and that box was placed in another box with those clear plastic "air bags" in between.

Are you sure you won't try shipping me a pair of doors? At this point it may be worth my time to drive to Alabama, lol.

[SamG]

Let me go back through and take a few pictures of what I have...I'll post those pics here. I've got one right door in the basement that I think is a very nice door but I haven't stripped it yet.

I also have a couple of NOS left door skins if you want to go that route...they're the old red oxide primer ones. I remember one being very nice, the other looked like someone had flattened it, but I got it to pop back into place pretty easily.

I think the door you have there is very usable, just going to take some work...bent stuff is easy to fix, it's the rust that's aggravating.

SG

[JT1]

Sam, I sent you a PM.

[JT1]

Sam, I hate to be a pain, but I'd love to see whatever doors you have. Let me know,

Thanks!

John

[Skalabala]

Slapping file where you have space It is like magic