Just bought a pair of n.o.s. door skins for what I think was a very good price. The doors on my car have a fair bit of surface rust and pitting, but no perforation. I thought that the door skins were the best way to perfect doors until I did a search on installing these. Turns out it isn't all that simple! Wondering if any of you have had experience installing new door skins, and whether you would recommend it, or if I should just have the not-so-perfect doors repaired instead?
Most older skins are just pinched over the frame, I used to do them back in the day, you cut the old ones off by gently grinding the edge off and there just hooked over the top... The hard part is the hammer and dolly work it takes to pinch the new skin on, you have to take it easy or you end up with a wavy door skin.. Eastwood sells a tool you put in a air chisel that is suppose to pinch them on easily... Get a price from a body shop might be cheap enough...
Both of my doors where skinned years back. Really not that bad of a job. Like Mavgrab302 said grind the edges to remove the old ones. Eastwood sells door skin pliers if you don't want to use hammer and dolly.
I used Eastwood's door skin pliers to open up the pinch and remove the rusty parts of the hood frame from the front lip of the hood while repairing the rusty hood. They worked fine. Of course, that case was different because I reusing the folded part of the pinch and discarded the pinched piece.
Sorry for the absence of pictures. Busy time. My original doors are solid, with no perforation, but have a fair bit of surface rust and pitting at the bottom 4 inches of the doors, where the handles attach, and around the holes for the side trim clips (some of these are pitted for 3 inches in diameter). The pitting is about "medium", i.e., not thru, but pretty nasty. The floor of this car, and the rocker panels are pristine. After cleanup and mods I painted it with 2 coats of POR15. There's some perforation around the wheel openings, so I acquired n.o.s. full quarters for both sides. The front fenders are off of a drag car so are 100% metal. My thinking in buying these skins was to further insure that no rust particle get left behind. You know what that stuffs like. Miss a bit of it (in the bottom of some pits, or in a crease), then next thing you know, you're doing the body again. By the way, the skins have no clip holes, and I was going to fill these anyways. Part of my motivation too was that I thought that with these skins I could do the door repairs myself. I'd like to be able to say that I did most of the car myself. But I have very little bodywork experience. I don't want to ruin the skins, but would like to try to put them on myself. Any more advice on this decision? Thanks one and all.
I would need to see pictures...but I am leaning towards the new skins. And I would have a pro install them.
I would use the new skins. Since you already have them. It's not a bad job to install them if you have the knowledge. If not I think it would still be worth your money to have some one that knows how install them.
i got some questions: wat part of the door are you guys describing? and where exactly is it located? i dont know if i have the rite picture in my head. pics wood be great! lol
ohhhhhh!!! ok then gotcha. i was thinking of the inner door area, thnk u very much. now tht i no wat u guys r tlkin about, i can join the conversation lol.
I had my mustang fenders dipped.It took off all the rust and paint.There is a place in Chatham(A&A metal cleaning and stripping)They are great to deal with and not to expensive.
Thanks Mike. I'll keep that in mind. I've been meaning to put up pics of my doors, but we just had a new granddaughter arrive, so it's been busy around here. Will try to do that a.s.a.p.
