Front Passenger Door - Body Damage Part II

Here's what I noticed

Something happened to the door shell itself on the previous repair in that it's bent and they had to move the entire door out from the jamb in order to line it up with the front wing. The previous repair guy was bloody lazy in fixing this properly the last.

Well crap.

After doing some measurements I noticed it's just the top portion of the shell that's pushed in. So I repositioned the pull tabs and went to town. The door shell is to thick to pull on. I literally starting pulling the skin off the door. I should point out I had so much tension on the car, the rims in the tyres were pulled laterally so hard they were flush with the sidewalls. This is too much. The door skin needs to come off and the door shell fixed first, then the skin, then put it back together.

Thus the can of worms gets opened further.

As a complete side note, do NOT bother with something like this. Again can't knock it till you tried it. I tried it. Let me just say this, if you are going to pull on sheet metal, use the large weld on tabs instead. This bloody useless thing creates so much additional damage it abounds the time to properly metal finish flat.

It would be easier to repair the damage caused by hurling a cinder block at the door than it would be from using this rubbish device.

This is what put the tin hat on this door. I could get a nice straight body line if I kept a tension on the bent shell section of the door. 95% of the damage at and above the upper body line I worked out, but the edge curves back in as soon as I release the straps. Plus even though the weather stripping is old and will be replaced I did notice a gap where the door was moved out. Now probably the new weatherstrip would fill that gap, but still would be nice to get the door shell back to where it's supposed to be.

So now it's time to practice removing doors skins. This is a highly debated topic and there's very little information on removing a door skin to reuse. Loads of information on how to remove one to put a brand new one on, which is just peachy when you have a popular old car that someone actually makes quality parts for. If you own a 3rd gen galaxie, any 3rd gen Ford full size, this is not you.

I still kept out in back those 4 doors to a '66 galaxie 500 post car. Actually glad I did, because it's practice and also I noticed the front door skins are the same for a 4 door post as they are for a 4 door hardtop. Super!

So I practiced with the spare rear doors from the post car. There are valid problems that come along with trying to reuse a door skin. First is cold working leading to cracking and secondly is damage removing it.

First I read up as much as I could on this and this thread on this website was the only one that had useful information on removing and reusing an old door skin.

Tutorial Door Skin Removal For Dummies

I made the little screwdriver tool and bought skin removal pliers.

One rear door skin later.

Now there was a lot of corrosion in the lower corners of this skin and so it went into a makeshift bath large enough to deoxidize it.

Worked like a charm.

But here's something interesting that I'd like to touch on. Rust..... specifically rust bubbling through paint. When you see even the tiniest bubbles of rust on the outside of a skin. It's just the tip of the iceberg. So anyone who tells you that's nothing and is easy to fix properly is full of it. I do mean full of it.

If I were going to use this I'd have to cut away this whole lower portion as it's paper thin. And whilst it's hard to see with this shot, after coming out of the bath it has pin holes in it. Shoving body filler into the hole and repainting is only a limited time fix it will come back with a vengeance. When I see these cars for sale with nice paint jobs but shoddy interiors, under car areas, and engine bay photos, you know darn well filler was shoved into the rusted area, painted and now they are trying to flip the car asking a high price (more than what the car is truly worth) only to have the buyer experience bubbling later on in the nice paint. Now it's back to square one and all that money is lost on the car.

Here's a problem that was mentioned I would have that did materialize. Whilst I was reforming the lip the metal was work hardened too much and it split. So the door skin would need to be annealed first before it comes off to avoid this.

The only way to anneal steel is get it cherry red hot and let it cool as slowly as you can. Propane torches will not get hot enough.

So I had to buy this little oxy-acetylene kit.

Driver side front door to try this out on.

And that worked, I quickly dressed (hammered and dollied) the edges after removing and no splitting.

In the next part I'll show the tools I made and bought and how I removed the pass front door skin from the 4 door post car door.

Unfortunately I wasn't clear when I was raking over the stud gun. Seriously the only reason why I thought this would have any chance of being handy is only to restore the ridge in the upper body line. The merest speculation of using it solely for the major damage never crossed my mind. But the ridge was so creased inward all stud gun did was distort and rip the skin at the top of the ridge. Basically it made more work. The weld on tabs worked the best for the major damage but they can't restore fine detail as in a ridged body line.

Now back to why I needed to remove the door and skin. A couple reasons actually. First, the door shell itself is bent. I tried pulling on it via the skin at the edge and there was so much force being exerted it started pulling the skin off. Plus I do not like that much force on the hinges, lock and also the A pillar where the windscreen is at. All this is adding up for more disasters.

Secondly the previous repair was done poorly, the skin had already been replaced once before sometime in the past with a Ford factory replacement. There was rust creeping out from around the edges.

Lastly there was limited access from inside because of the door shell to get a spoon or dolly in there to work the skin out.

I would like to preface this whole door repair operation with a bit about the person whose doing all this. I'm picky and eccentric. Very picky and eccentric actually. Some people are totally fine with using copious amounts of plastic filler and sanding smooth and calling it properly repaired. Not me. No sir.

Now some repairman use filler to achieve a laser straight car body, many times better looking than the factory pushed out the door and that's fine. To each their own. I am happy with restoring the shape of the car to how it rolled out of the factory all those years ago. To me that's one thing of the appeal of a classic car are the little imperfections in this case. They didn't have CNC machines making drawing dies for the stampings like they do today. All those dies were hand made and weren't perfect. That leads to character and less sterile looking. Plus if the car is perfect you'll probably want to baby it to no end and be afraid to drive it. And for some exotic and rare (collectable and expensive) that's probably a good thing. But these are galaxies, they are being restored to a degree to be driven on a daily basis and aren't worth much even restored.

That is my modus operandi for our cars. Not concours quality, but look good and are reliable with a few well thought through modifications along they way that make them unique to others like them. I have very specific goals for these cars. With that said, I am willing to forgo perfect body work, but I do think having no plastic filler on a car and sticking to just the base steel and lead is a much better way to go. It's harder to do and is a sign of old world craftsmanship. In my opinion it's a much higher sign of quality than slathering plastic filler all over it.

With that I will also concede I dislike body work and I am no expert. I will try my very best to learn all I can learn and try to make the repair using no plastic filler. So we shall see just how well I do.

For reference I bought the following book and video and have been reviewing them almost incessantly.

Martin BFB The Key to Metal Bumping Manual Instruction Book

and

Classic Metal Shaping

Both the book and video are important. The book teaches the very basics and the reasons behind them as well as developing analytical thinking towards damage and creating a rational plan of attack. The video compliments this as it takes all the theory and puts it into practice on real examples. The fellow in the video is really talented. He's the kind that can make a complete door skin from scratch and with nothing but simple hand tools and such.

He also has a You-Tube Channel mindover3

I mean there are always more than one way to accomplish something. Again to each their own. I would like to learn as much as I can from skilled tradesman like this fellow if anything just to improve my knowledge and experience.

Cheers