Door skin replacement

The passenger door showed up to be in decent conditions after being media blasted. In spite, the driver door did not. It had some rust damage in the inner door shell and the skin had dents and rust. A friend suggested that I would replace the full door shell with a new one. But as the new door would cost hundreds of euros if ordered from overseas and due to the fact that I had a door skin available for 50 euros from a fellow FMOC member, I decided to take a chance to repair the old one. Should I fail to fix it correctly, I would only loose some time and little money.

First thing to do was to fix the rust in the door shell to add rigidity before removing the skin.

Rust damage in the lower front corner

Patch being test fit

Patches welded

I'll need to put the doors back before I will move further to the quarter panel repairs. Therefore I needed to make sure that the doors will remain in their correct position. The door hinges got blasted and a set of new hinge pins. 

The hinges repaired

Door to quarter gap looks nice

I left the door attached to the car, pulled my angle grinder and little by little ground the door edges so that the skin would separate from the flange.

Rear edge is getting loose

There are only few spot welds along the edge

Instead of drilling I ground the spot welds off

The door is split in halves

There is a bracket for the vent window in the door skin that needs to be collected from the old skin. I recorder its position by measuring the distances from certain points. (The door skin had date code 10 2 2 E , btw) Then the spot welds were drilled out and the bracket cleaned and painted.

Vent window bracket

The bracket being welded to the new skin

I spent a while grinding the major rust off the inner surface of the door shell before it was handled with rust encapsulating acid and painted black. A new insulator was glued on the structural bar that faces the door skin's inner surfaces.

Inner surface painted

Insulator to prevent unwanted rattle and noise

The shell was placed on the table and the door skin was set on top of it. I checked the many times to ensure correct positioning before tightening the skin against the shell with all the pliers I could possibly find. Then, with light hits with a hammer, I started the bend the flange carefully. I kept rotating the door at least three times over until done. The final round was assisted with a dolly to prevent twisting the visible surface of the door skin.

I did not weld the spots to the flange at this point. I wanted to ensure that the door aligns well before welding. The door was hung back on and the gaps to rocker and quarter verified. The skin appeared to be quite good but not perfect.

Fits fine from this angle

It appears that the dent in the old skin had also twisted the lower edge of the shell as well. The skin gaps well with the rocker but the center area of the edge is a couple of millimeters out of the rocker. This needs to be addressed with gentle hammering. I will not add welds until this is done.

Another problem with the new skin is that it seems smaller in height that the original door. That is, the door has to be lifted up a couple of millimeters until the ridge in the belt line matches with the quarter panel. This may effect that the rocker gap will grow too big and needs some filler metal.

These final adjustments are to be done after the quarter panel repairs are finished and the front fender is installed. Then all the three are to be adjusted together to match with each other.

Seat platforms lowered

I appreciate good seats in the car I drive. Modern cars usually have reasonably good seats but very often they are designed so that short people are able to move towards the steering wheel. The seats can be yanked up and down and most of the people are satisfied but it is very seldom that you find a perfect position if you are, like I am, 190 cm. If I am able to adjust the seat so that I can easily handle the car, it the inadequate support for thighs that finally lets me down. Especially the front-wheel driven cars have another typical structure which makes it almost impossible to feel comfortable behind the steering wheel. It is the distance between the pedals and the steering wheel. The rear wheel driven cars, like Mustang, have much nicer shaped triangle formed by the pedals-steering and the seat.

Having said that, Mustang is better, does not mean that it couldn't be better. The original seat is quite flat which means poor support for thighs. So the seat platform angle has to be changed. I am planning on using original seats (if I will find a pair with reasonable price) but will also keep an option for modern sport seats. Sport seats need to have their own seat tracks which will need clearance in height.

The solution to prepare for both versatility and better position is to lower and change the angle of seat platforms. A bonus of the operation is a little more headroom, which is welcome if I ever should participate track days with helmet. So without hesitation I grabbed my angle grinder and cut the rear flange off of the platform about one inch above the floor level.

The rear flanges cut off

Fitting. Masking tape shows where to cut and bend

It took quite a many times fitting before it sat nicely. Not a hard thing to do anyway. I cut and ground small pieces at a time until the shape followed the contours of the floor. Then a wise and a hammer were used to force the flange to smoothly touch the floor pan.

Floor finished with primer and paint

The inner surface got some paint too

Note that I did not weld a flange in the rear. The platform will lay welded on the subframe connector so I did not feel like the floor pan would require a flange.

Rear edge welded with beads to the floor 

The front flange welded with spots

Once done with welding I measured the change. The front is now 1,5 cm lower and the rear is 3,0 cm lower. The change can be seen in the below picture where the drilled out old spot welds can be seen in the side flange and in the rocker. 

Some grinding needed. Then final welding.

I did not have the seats at hand to test but if the lowering was too heavy, I can always return to original height using shims. On the other hand, the change is so small that I think there will be no trouble fitting the carpet.

How to remove door internals

I've done this a couple of times before but anyhow it was challenging to recall the correct order of disassembling the doors so this time I decided to to document the process for future. The main order in the disassemble is to work from front to rear so that the vent window comes out first and the locking system comes out last. So here is how I did it.

1.	Remove the window crank, door latch crank and the door handle
2.	Peel the door upholstery panel out and remove the cardboard behind it
3.	Unscrew the window crank limiters.
	The upper of them is the up limit and the lower is supposed to limit the low position
4.	Remove the C-clip and the roller from the scissor channel in the and unbolt the 2 nuts
5.	Loosen  the 4 bolts from the window crank mechanism and the 3 bolts
	which hold the scissor entity to the inner door panel
6.	Lift the window upward so that you can
7.	Remove the 2 c-clips and rollers which hold the scissor to the channel in window
	The scissor system can now be pulled off the window frame
8.	While holding the window up , use your other hand to remove
	the 7 bolts that hold the scissor and crank mechanism.
	Now the mechanism is loose and may be dropped to the bottom
	of the door and pulled out.  If it does not drop at this point see phase 12 and return here and continue
9.	Loosen and remove the two bolts from the vent window
10.	Loosen and remove the two nuts which secure the adjustable
	screws of the vent window
11.	If possible screw in the adjustable screws of the vent window.
	They cannot be removed until the vent window is lifted upwards a couple of inches
	(my lower adjustable screws was so tight with rust that it could not be removed even then)
12.	If not possible in phase 8 you can now lift and move the vent window so that the
	window mechanism drops to the bottom and can be removed.
13.	Remove the bolt and window up limiter from the front of the bottom frame of the window
14.	Lower the window to the bottom of the door
15.	I will replace my furry belt line weatherstrip so I removed them at this point.
16.	The vent window can now be lifted about 2 inches so that
	you can remove the adjusting bolts out of the openings in the window.
	Once done lift the vent window out of the door.
17.	Move the window forward and start working at the rear of the door
	Remove the 4 screws that hold the gasket on the upper opening
	Remove the 2 cups covering the openings
	Remove the 2 bolts and 1 nut holding the rear window run
	Remove the short bolt holding the window rear limiter but do not remove the hex head screw
18.	By moving the window forward and up inside the door you can now remove the rear run
19.	Lift the window up and move it rearward and slide it out

 

I was unable to remove the vent window adjusting screw so I did not manage to pull it out. Therefore I did have to define an application to the above instructions so that I did not remove the vent window but lifted it up as much as possible and hung it so that it remained out of the way until the rear run was removed. 

Once both doors were done, they we sent to soda/sand blasting. The passenger side door may have chances to be recovered but the driver door will need some patching and a new door skin panel.

This interior panel had the date Sep. 28 1964 stamp on it.

Panorama view of the door shell

Window crank limiters

Limiter openings

Scissor channel, clips and rollers

Front scissor channel in the bottom of the window frame 

Rear scissor channel in the bottom of the window frame

Window crank scissor system removed

Loosening the vent window securing bolts

Vent windows lifted for removal of the adjusting nuts

Home made hoist to be able to loosen the rusted adjusting bolts.
The rear run is being pulled out.

Vent window removed

Hi Jackers sticker is so '70s

Floor Pans

With the subframe connectors in place demanded for the floor pans to follow. I received a pair of full-length Taiwanese floor pans when I purchased the vehicle. They felt like fitting nicely when checked prior to installing the connectors. They have a lot of excess material in front and on the curved inner side which were cut off roughly first.

The connectors prevent fitting the pans exactly before making the final cuts so I paid a lot of time verifying the correct position and the little by little cut pieces off. I used marker pen to help decide how much overlap I had and finally left a couple of centimeters.The problem in fitting is that the pan does not fit correctly until the final cut is done and the final cut cannot be made until the final position is defined.

The subframe connectors required the pan to be 'sunk' around it. The area was marked under the car and cut about one centimeter smaller. The remaining extra sheet metal was then twisted upwards and hammered tight to press against the side of the connector while gently hammering the floor pan downwards.

Cutting the opening for the connector

Once the fit was satisfying, the pan was removed, the necessary spot weld holes drilled, the pan was installed once again and secured with self-drilling screws to the frame rail extension and to the transmission cross member as these are the most crucial areas and need to be welded first.

Final fitting before welding

Seat platform area

The long seam weld to the drive shaft tunnel was the last when all the spots had been welded to the frame rails, cross member and to the rocker panel. I tack welded the panels together and used my angle grinder to cut both sheets simultaneously. Then they were butt welded little by little.

Both sides done

Now I had the floor for the front passenges and for the rear foot well area. But the floor under the rear seat was still to be addressed.

The opened areas of rear frame rails were cleaned, painted and boxed with 10x30 cm sheet metal patches. Before that I had to cut and remove the quarter trim panel support brackets. I took some measures before cutting to be able to place them back in the same position. Then the remaining rusted material was removed by drilling, cutting and grinding.

Measuring the distance between
quarter trim panel support and the rocker

Brackets removed

Patches for boxing the rear frame rails

Patches welded

I wanted to avoid removing the seat brackets so I only used a piece of the patch on the driver side. The passenger side had so much pitting and rust so I had to replace a larger piece and add a small triangular patch in between. The seat bracket's position was measured prior to removing.

The panels are Canadian made but to my disappointment the passenger side especially needed a lot of massaging to fit. Once the sheet metal was attached, I welded the seat and trim panel brackets back.

Quarter trim brackets still missing in this picture

Now my car does have a floor, despite that a lot of grinding is still left to be done.

Subframe Connectors

With the toe boards welded I was able to move rearwards to the floor pans. But until they would be installed, the subframe connectors would be designed, manufactured and installed first. I ended up with designing them myself as I wanted them to look like they were part of original structure, instead of bolted on later.

The seat platforms were removed, the frame rail extensions were exposed and by using the masking tape I sketched the plan. The old floor pan was held in place as long as possible as a guide for positioning the connectors. The connectors would be made of 60x60x2mm square tubes which would fit tight in the extensions. I obtained two tubes of 1800mm in length. The inner surface of the extensions themselves appeared to be in excellent condition.

The front and rear rails are neither in line or in same height which demands for making a couple of pairs of corners if you want them to follow the contours of the floor pans. An application of this kind of solution can be found in DazeCars website. Their solution looks good, but it not exactly what I was looking for. Therefore I took some measures (could not find good documentation in the web) and sketched the shape with masking tape.

I later found BuckeyDemon's thread at www.1969stang.com showing the best looking subframe I've ever seen on a Mustang.

Sketching the shape of the connector

I measured the distance of how far the inner surface of the frame rail is from the rocker panel and decided that the lateral corners would have to result to connector moving 87 mm out when travelling to rear. To make that kind of movement within the sketched length required two 25 degree angles.

Extension rear end was cut off

25 degree notch cut off

After the first cut was tack welded I aligned the tube with the edge of my work bench so that the position of the second notch could be exactly defined. The notch should be made where the tube has traveled 87 mm out of the table's edge. When this was defined and the notch cut, the tube was then clamped to the table and with the help of wood blocks twisted so that the needed 87 mm was obtained and that the front and rear were still parallel with each other.

Defining the position for the second notch

Tube aligned and tack welded

The front end was then narrowed so that it creates a wedge to make it easier to slide under the toe board towards the frame rail. I measured and marked reference points to the old floor pan and the tube to help me observe how far the tube has to go under the toe board to meet the frame rail.

The wedged front

Now that I had the reference points for longitudinal position I would be able to test fit and define the needed position and shape of the cutting still needed. I cut off the top of the tube from the area that is in the rear foot well. The remaining thickness in this area is 38 mm. The rear of the tube was shortened with 20 cm as it appeared too long. I copied the shape of the bottom of the rear torque box to the side of the tube and made necessary notches. At this point I was confirmed that no vertical notches were needed.

With these modifications the tube appeared to fit with some hammering. It's easy to hammer it in but it's painful to pull out when done so at this point I prepared the frame rail extension by drilling the holes for spot welding and painted the areas which would be not accessible later.

The next day I slid the tube in , helped the moves with some tender hammering and the tube was there ready to be welded. About 15 spots were welded to the both sides of the frame rail extensions and the rear edge of the frame rail extension was seam welded to the connector. In the rear the connector was seam welded to the bottom of the torque box and to the inner edge of the read frame rail.

Positioned and ready to be welded

Spot welds along the frame rail extension

I did not pay too much attention to detailing and finishing the tail of the connector at this point. It is much easier to work with later when the leaf springs are removed and the car is hung on the rotisserie.

Seam welded to the torque box

The detached top of the rear part was then cut to fit the top again and placed on top of opened area. With the top back on this area is 60mm x 40mm in size. Before this I had verified the correct vertical position so that it would align with the floor pan as close as possible. I accepted the top part to be a couple of millimeters higher than the floor pan so it could be welded on the torque box front as well.

The rear of the connector boxed

Finished

Now the remaining old floor pan could be removed. The connector penetrates in to the cabin but only in the area which will be covered with the seat platform. I added some seam welds between the upper edges of the tube and the inner edges of the flanges of the frame rail extension. The tube is now surely strongly attached and stiff. The rest of the floor pans was removed and some primer was spread.