Monday 26 July 2010

Door Gaps

For those people who have had issues getting the door gaps right when they try and fit new doors, this may be of interest.

As I have the time to get the panel gaps right on this car, I've had to do a bit of tedious work to ensure the door gaps look good.

I just thought this method up on the fly......
  • First, fit the doors as best you can.
  • In my case I could get a good constant gap along the lower sill edge.
  • This gave me uneven gaps at the front & rear edges.
  • Draw a line along the door skin parallel with the edges (see photos).
  • At the areas where the gap needs work, draw measurements of how much extra metal is needed.
  • Sand the edge back to metal and carefully build up a bead of weld (see photos).
  • Be careful not to do too much in one spot at one time (see photos).
  • Finally, grind back the weld to meet your measurements.
Hopefully you can see from the before and after photos - it doesn't look too bad at all.
It will need just a skim of filler or even a heavy undercoat filler would do. Here are the photos in the sequence above....



End of "mini post" about door gaps!