Doors On

One of my fathers coworkers recreated my rotted door-gutters in 1/8" stainless steel from scrap they had laying around, so when I got them they just needed to have holes drilled to fit in the doors. Well if you didn't know stainless steel isn't easy to drill through. After burning through 5-6 bits I got all the holes drilled, painted them with the same enamel/ceramic mix I used on the trunk pan.

for those of you who don't know: all metal work should be done barefoot/flip-flops. It's the only way to do it. Don't believe me? Check out the editor of Hot-Rod magazine...

Once the paint had dried it was simply screwing them into their spots on the door sills.

With the headliner done, the door sills painted, and the new rain gutters bent, cut and drilled, there was nothing stopping the doors from going on. So that seemed like the thing to do. First I taped all the edges up with painters tape so any unintentional metal on metal contact wouldn't remove paint. I used some spare headliner as padding during the fitting process as well.

Lined the hinges up in their slots and hammered the pins through. Then it was just a matter of adjusting the door's position by tightening or loosening the 24mm nuts on each hinge. Once they were moving in and out freely without hitting anything I removed the padding  (left the tape for now).

The next step is putting the stopping hardware back together so that the doors only open as much as they're supposed to. If you don't install this stuff right the doors will open too far and go straight through the fiberglass skins, not good. I didn't have any of this hardware except a single shim to use as a guide for the other one. So I created a new shim for the passenger door and made a pair of tiny pins by shortening a bolt and grinding the top of it down. Now I've just gotta figure out how to imitate the rubber stoppers on the other side...

That little bugger

Door Sills and Rocker Panels

During the work on the rest of the car the door sills/rocker panels got some abuse from tools laying on them or being stepped on, stuff banging into them. Problem is these panels are visible with the body on so they can't be allowed to remain looking like crap.

Right here looks like there was some kind of body repair that the Bondo chipped off...

Well once I took the wire wheel to it it was worse/better than I hoped. At first it was worse because it was an obscene amount of Bondo coming off, but once it was all off it was a slight relief that whoever has repaired the rocker had at least welded on a patch instead of filling the hole with Bondo.

So this seam got wire brushed all around and got a new glob of the best Bondo money can buy, smoothed out and sanded and go primed with the rest of the rockers and door sills.

<ADD PICTURES OF PRIMED ROCKER/SILLS>

Rebuilding the Doors

The doors on this car were rough. Their fiberglass skins had to come off so they could be repaired and painted and I figured that'd be a good time to rebuild and restore the under workings of the doors. 

Here are some before pictures of how rough the doors were before I did anything. First I removed all the internal components, window regulator, window channels, windows, locks, latch, everything. Once everything was out and stored away to be cleaned separately I set to work on the door frame. Removing all the old paint and silicone took several days, even with a grinder and a big wire wheel.

I'll add some pictures of what the doors look like afterwards later, I didn't really take any during the process but the process isn't overly complicated. Just take pictures of everything before it comes out so you know where it goes when it's time to reassemble. Or you can do what I did which is do the doors one at a time, then you have the one that's still together to use as a guide.

The locks and latch all got polished and rustproofed, Lowe's sells basically machinist's oil in a spray can that you blast on and rub in to protect the metal. All the internal components that are painted got wire brushed to metal then they were primed and painted. New window channels went in, and the windows were cleaned thoroughly while they were out of the doors. Window regulators got polished extensively and re-lubricated with some oil.

Then it was just a matter of putting the puzzle back together with the newly cleaned, painted and lubed parts. A simple if nerve wracking process (slotting the glass back in was super scary).