Replacing door lower half

[RobThomas]

Replacing door lower half inner and outer. Has anyone done it with current replacement panels that you can buy? Good fit? Easy to line up? Any tricks or potential problems?
Good doors but some pitting has gone most of the way through and I only want to paint it once!

[LouiseM]

This thread might be helpful: http://www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f= ... tom+repair

[chickenjohn]

I've done a number of door bottoms. The repair sections (LMC Hadrian) are a pretty good fit. Although you need to be careful to cut the remaining door skin (1mm cutting disk/tin snips) to fit with a ~1/2 " overlap to allow for the plug welding. Plug welding is far better than seam welding here as it lessens the distortion

They are joddled to allow plug welding to the remaining door skin. Grind along the folded over flanges to remove the rusty part of the door skin without disturbing the good part. Best to drill 8mm holes in the remaining door skin where it overlaps the repair section and plug weld through these seam mig where the old and new meet at the reverse of the door.

It is a good idea to tightly hold the repair section to the old part of the outer skin with self tapping screws- helps the plug welding.

Tap the edges of the skin over the door frame with hammer and dolly. You'll be lucky if the door frame itself does not need repair. The passenger door on my Traveller was the only door I've repaired that did not also need work to the frame as well. You can buy sections for the inner frame or make up your own if you are good at fabricating repair sections. Coat all overlaps with zinc spray before welding it all together and paint inside the door. Seam seal all seams and joins. You will also need to fill the outside of the join between repair section and old door skin. I use Body solder for the initial fill, then skim with bodyfiller before etch priming and paint prep.

I started getting worried about that Youtube video when he started grinding without goggles!

[RobThomas]

There is a narrow channel that holds a rubber strip onto the bottom skin of the door (Might only be on MMs?) that I'll need. Is there an ESM part number for it? Can't seem to locate it.

[chrisryder]

http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... c1806b5ee2

EXC122

[RobThomas]

Ah, that's the one. Thanks!

Old age getting the better of me because I was only searching the 'panels' section, not the 'door fittings' one. Doh.

Looks like about £50 per side for the bits to do the job properly. Not too bad. I can weld that bit on in a slightly different place because the original has slightly worn into the surface of the aluminium sill cover panel which they fitted to these early Lowlights instead of the steel ones on all later cars. Nice to keep it a little bit original, eh?

[RobThomas]

Just had a look at the new outer skin bottom sections from ESM. Not even the same profile. The original skins have crisp corners in all of the pressed folds whereas the ESM panels are rounded as if pressed on worn tooling. The iiner sections have holes in the wrong places for my car, too. Can't use any of these £100+ panels.

If we all chip in, maybe we can employ Taupe to head up a new company making Morris panels.



Taupe for president!

[ASL642]

Seconded! We had this trouble. Before Jon started welding, we had the doors done by our local friendly welder and supplied him with the replacement door bottoms. He said he had to fabricate "corners" to get them to fit properly.

[RobThomas]

One these bits get pinched together they seem to fit alright. I've only done the first inch to see how it will look.[frame][/frame]