From my last blog you noticed I had a problem with the door alignment at the rear quarter panel and the door opening. I figured out why, the rear quarter panel was replaced before I bought the car. Well the bozo's that did the work didn't care. And by looking at the alignment holes around the edge of the convertible top the holes do not align up.
The holes toward the top are suppose to align up.
You can see the hole is off toward the back by about a 1/4 of an inch.
So I can either remove the rear quarter panel or find another solution. The other solution is to add metal to the door.
I believe Alex and others did a similar process on their doors also. I got a 1/8 inch metal rod and started to weld the rod to the door edge. After buying new doors, the last thing I wanted to do was to weld on them. What if it makes it worse? Or the panel warps? Well, I have to move forward.
I would tack weld the rod and cool it off with water to keep it from warping.
Checking the alignment. The top of the door has a bigger gap than toward the bottom of the door.
Guess I'm going to be adding another rod toward the top.
Making marks with a paint pen to help me.
Starting to look better.
Progress.
Looks like it might work. Trimming, cleaning, welding, grinding, hours and hours of working the metal.
Had to add a bit of metal to the inside or else it would catch your shirt or jacket when you close the door.
Painted it the base coat to check for errors. Need to clean up the edge a bit but this is almost finished.
The inside edge. I hope this works out and doesn't look funny.
