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Door repairs Posted by DougM [Email]  (#211)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from DougM) on Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:51:49
In Reply to: P.S. DougM, Cody, Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:20:53 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Though I am not 100% familiar with the bottom of a 96's door, I'd imagine it's no different than any other door bottom. Door bottoms usually rot out, rusting some of the outer skin and some of the inner skin. We have a supplier here that sells generic patch panels to repair the bottoms. They are roughly five foot long and six inches wide, and one long edge of the panel is folded over in the shape of a "V". We cut out the rotted section of the outer and hope the inner is not too far gone, because patching the inner is a little harder. We trim the 6 inch side to whatever width we need, usually a few inches, enough to overlap the part of the door which still has good metal. Using 3M's weld thru coating is a good idea to treat the bare metal surfaces which will be welded, since once your welds are made, painting those surfaces will not be possible. The length of the patch panel is trimmed to fit exactly to the size of the part of the bottom that was cut out. We weld the ends first, then tack the outer length of the patch every few inches. Welding it solid is up to you, and depending on how much the customer is paying for the job, depends if we weld it solid or not. The last job I did rebuilding a tail gate, the guy got a weld every inch, instead of solid. Same procedure with welding other patches...don't weld long sections at a time or you risk warping the panel. After the outer is welded, flip the door over and evaluate what you have. If there is enough of the inner left to weld to the new panel, then all is good. Hammer and dolly the "V" lip down along the entire length, then spot weld the inner skin to the patch panel. If you have to do patches to the inner to make it meet the new panel, then that's a whole another step that isn't to hard to figure out. You would want those patches to go into the "V" before you hammer it down. Then you just use seam sealer to seal the whole length of the inner edge....no need to weld the inner solid cus the factory didn't even do that.
Grind all your welds flat, use duraglas to seal any welded patch....
Tomorrow I should be building the bottom of a Ford Bronco tail gate, so if I remember to take my camera to work I could take pics of the process.
posted by 69.174.101...
, Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:25:29, Sun, 12 Dec 2004 21:46:18, Mon, 13 Dec 2004 15:51:49 <-- Viewing This Message, Tue, 14 Dec 2004 16:45:59
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