LWB Door Repair

[denniso]

Hi All,

Both of the doors in my '70 911 have rust along portions of the bottom edge. I purchased the lower door skins from Restoration Design and I was going to attempt the Repair myself. However after I received the panels, I was dismayed to see the RD door repair panels are perfectly flat from the top edge to the lower edge. The 911 doors are heavily contoured top to bottom, so these repair panels would need to be contoured which is beyond my skill level.

Does anyone have experience with Stoddard's lower door panels? Do they have the correct contour?

If not, I guess my options are find 2 rust-free LWB doors or purchase complete door doors. Hopefully the doors skins have the correct contour.

Suggestions or experience with door Repair greatly appreciated.

-Dennis

[moito]

go for rust free doors...if you are not that picky go for g-mod doors which are more easy to find and modify the corpus to fit your car...

[denniso]

Thanks Moito.

I'll probably do that.

Out of curiosity, how hard to install complete door shell?

[mac73s]

Thanks Moito.

I'll probably do that.

Out of curiosity, how hard to install complete door shell?

Not knowing your skill set, a little hard to say. If you've not done this before, just do one at a time and that way you can refer to the other's internal hardware to see what goes where and how things fit together. Re-adjustment of the door fit (gap alignment), door post striker, glass and window frame will almost certainly be needed.

[Phil Planck]

Dennis
You could try to locate a metal working shop that has an English wheel and have them put the correct contour on the RD parts.

[denniso]

Thanks Guys.

The more I study the door construction, the more I realize that addressing the lower edge rust is beyond my skill level. I'll likely look for a nice pair of door shells. As Moito pointed out, 74+ doors will fit and easier/cheaper to find. My 70 is far from original so I'll start looking for replacementdoor shells.

[tcsracing1]

Thanks Guys.

The more I study the door construction, the more I realize that addressing the lower edge rust is beyond my skill level. I'll likely look for a nice pair of door shells. As Moito pointed out, 74+ doors will fit and easier/cheaper to find. My 70 is far from original so I'll start looking for replacementdoor shells.

If your car is far from original, then a set of rust free doors from a 74+ will suffice. (If you can find a pair that do not need work)
Your window frames are original which is nice as they have the correct bolt sizing as found on early cars.

Now, that being said if you can find a metal shop that can repair your doors properly, it would be nice to retain the original doors if possible. It is not that much work to get them right with the skins you have if you use the right shop.

[mac73s]

If the OP wants to do it, photos of the doors would be helpful to show if the problem is more or less of a project than he (or we, without photos) might think. Door skins, replacement doors, or some artful "cut and paste' of damaged sections are all possibilities.

[Eminence Gris]

I have a very clean, rustfree SWB right door shell. Big difference is the fasteners for the door pockets are absent on the shell I have. I know where there are some left door shells, but I believe all are later, so would have the impact beam and large mirror holes -- as well as not having captive nuts for the 70 door pockets.

Bolting/unbolting a door shell is trivial by comparison to welding a sheet metal patch successfully...