The Doors Part II

It's been months since I updated the blog.  We had a crazy storm in the area and no power for two days.  I'm at a friends house and figured I'd update the blog!  So here is the updates.  We all love pictures so I'm loading up a bunch for everyone to enjoy.

I needed my peace so I enforced the man cave rules for the garage!  Fortunately for me, I have a small fridge, a room AC unit, computer, radio, propane heat (during the winter), and a wife and daughter that sort of understand I got work that needs to be done but they still try to cross the man cave entrance to the garage.

This is about where I left off.  No doors and I bought two new ones.  

The old door is on the floor and the detailed hinges are hanging from my garage door frame above the doors.

When I went to put the hinges on the doors, the bolt holes were too large for the original bolts.  Doubled checked on the old doors and yep, the new door brackets are too large.  I couldn't find any bolts similar to the originals at AMK that fit the new doors and I didn't want to just put anything up there unless they were original, so the best thing I could figure out was I welded up the holes, and re-tapped them to fit the original bolts.  I spent many hours making sure the holes were welded up really good so that they can handle the weight of the door, glass, and hardware.  Wasn't easy since the plates inside the door could not be removed to weld it from both sides.

17/64 thread(I think) or 1/2 in bolt head.

9/16 bolt head on the right, tapping the new threads on the left.  I used the 9/16 bolt to hold the bracket from moving around.

1/2 inch bolt fits.  Yay!

Hinges in place.

After I spent many hours struggling with the doors to hang them I figured I would see what other folks did.  Alex mentioned that others used paint sticks or thin pieces of wood on the door sill frame to prop the door to the right height.  It worked great for me.  Thanks Alex and Homer Depot for the sticks.

I used four paint sticks, two in the front and two in the back.

Few adjustments and it started to look like a car again.

It didn't align up with the front fender very well, so I tried a few different things like metal shims, cursing, drink a couple of beers, and try again and I figured out since the car was wreaked in the front driver side, it didn't really line up right so I took the shims out and I'll get it as close as possible and think about it some more.

Looks a little better.

I will have to deal with this gap at some point.

My template from the old door.

The original.

New door is going to get cut.

Since the doors are standard doors, they didn't have the holes for the courtesy light on the inside of the door.  Measured the old door and proceeded to cut away with my Dremel tool.   I will also need to make a hole for the drivers side remote mirror also before paint.

A new hole in the door!

Media blast the courtesy light frames, aluminum paint from Eastwoods and white on the inside, looks like new.

Test fit and good to go.

Rear quarter needed some cleaning up.

The brown car.  This was the base coat after much digging I found this color inside to original fender. It is rust-oleum anodized bronze.  Has a little shine to it and it helps me see the flaws in the body that gray primer wouldn't let you see.  After this coat and all good comes the gray primer.

There is my fenders on the top of the car, had to put them somewhere since I need them handy to align the fenders and panels.

More to come.  Looks like the power will still be out for a couple more days.  My friends house is full of people but at least we have power, AC and internet!  Thank you Jim for reaching out to us to stay with you.  200% better than watching videos on the iPad in the basement at home and taking cold showers.  :-)