The crease in the door, along with the rust holes looked like too much putty work. The putty would be too thick, like the original was. Kurt decided to get a donor door due to the damage.
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The interior of the passenger rear door. Note the extensive surface rust on the doorskin.
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The cutout interior bottom section. Note the rust holes.
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The bottom edge of the door is nothing but pinhole rust.
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Removing the doorskin takes patience - and a customized pair of locking pliers.
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The donor door problem. There were no doors available for a wagon and we didn't want to spend months looking for a door. This donor door is off a sedan. Kurt will graft the bottom of this good door onto the top of the original door.
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The bottom edge of the donor door is much less rusty and no pinholes. Everything you see is surface rust.
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Kurt removed the doorskin on the donor door as well. Construction of "franken-door" would be done in sections, for better panel alignment.
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Kurt removed the bottom interior section of the donor door at the exact same spots as he cut the original out. Then the panel was cleaned up an prepped for welding.
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The bottom section in place. The alignment is exactly where it should be.
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The doorskin was then cut of the donor door.
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Not much left of the donor door, but we will hang onto it, just in case.
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The skin of the donor door had a couple of minor rust holes that were patched prior to installing the skin.
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The patched holes in the skin from the donor door. Next step, put this repaired skin onto the original door.
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The inside of the door was coated with POR15 while the skin was off because we could reach it easier.
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Realiging the skin took a bit of "percussive persuasion" with a hammer.
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There is a special tool for reskinning doors. After the problems with the bottom edge of the driver door from peeling back the skin to fix the rust, Kurt bought the tool. Much less putty work will be needed to dress this out.
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The bottom edge is much smoother here than with the driver door. Live and learn.
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The skin was butt-welded to the original door and will need to be dressed out with putty. However, "franken-door" will require much less putty than the original mangled door would have.
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The body is taped off again, in preparation for spraying the high build primer surfacer sealer. It's late October 2012 and we need to seal up the bare metal before winter arrives.
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A new splashpan was purchased and prepped for the surfacer.
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The rust pitted front fender was prepped for the first round of spraying so that we could see how well this stuff worked. The product chosen was All-U-Need, a high build, primer, surfacer, sealer, with built in guide coat for sanding all in one.
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We choose the buff color as a contrast to the black epoxy primer from the base layer.
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The splashpan will not require much work to finish at all.
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The pits in the fender didn't fill in very well on the first high build coat. They proved to be a bit deeper than that. And the welds would still need a bit of dressing out.
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The driver taillight area came out very well.
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The passenger wheelwell came out ok, but there are still a couple of small areas that need work to be smooth under the planned vinyl covering.
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The driver wheelwell came out pretty good but still needed a bit of work.
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