You hear the word “Doorbuster” this time of year referring to all of the Black Friday sales, etc.
Around here last week, it meant a little something different…
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- YIKES!!! This is the LH Door from a restored Series 1 E-Type Roadster. As you can see from the damage – and Band-Aid – she has had a bit of a Boo-boo…
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- This happened earlier this Fall at a car show in New England, while the owner had stopped at the check-in station to fill out some paperwork. While they were standing there, a Pickup truck backed into the E-Type. I’m sure this was a REAL nightmare for the owner!
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- I was called about supplying a new door skin, and in the midst of the discussion, the story about the damage came out. “Hmmmmm – Send me some photos.” I said. And then in a few days, I wrote back – “You know what – I think I can fix that. And if I can, you won’t have to adjust the door gaps like you would with a new skin.”
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- This tear was another part of the damage, but you can also se the “fat” edge here, showing that this door has been reskinned in the past. It looked like a pretty decent job, and this was a good sign – because I knew I would have good tick new metal to work with. If the door had been patched along the bottom, I would not have even attempted the repair.
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- The skin itself is kinked here, but the inner shell is OK and the overall shape of the door is quite good. I decided to go for it.
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- This shot makes the door look bent, but it’s not – if we can brind the skin back, I think we’ll be OK!
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- Brent carefully stripped the skin with chemicals, revealing some signs of a little hammer and grinder work as part of the skinning process in the past, but overall I’d give it a good solid “B” – skinning these is VERY tough and these guys did alright.
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- I could imagine popping that big dent right back out, and of course that would have been no problem if the skin was OFF the door, but being pinned down around it’s circumference made the job MUCH harder – not to mention the inner shell giving very poor access to the backside of the damage. As you can see, I am pulling out ALL KINDS of hammers, dollys, rods, etc. to move this metal – the whole bag of tricks was in play this afternoon! This shot shows the beginnings of the process – I hated to get that big kink in there, but there was no avoiding it, and I just had to do what I could in the early stages…
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- Here is another shot. This is actually very similar to what we find under alot of E-Type’s paint – most body shops would stop here and get out the filler.
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- But not here! After the provious shot, I probably spent another 2 hours with hammers, dollies, slappers, shrinking discs, etc. to get the surface as smooth as I could and also as close to straight as possible.
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- This is not as perfect as it looks – it will need filler and the customer understood that going in. But what is nice is that it is less than 1/8″ from its original location eveywhere, and in most places, it’s there. It’s basically “correct, but wavy”…
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- I made extensive use of a straight edge on this project, and let me tell you, she’s DAMN CLOSE! There are also no “oil cans” in the surface – that is where you push one spot and it pops out in another, kind of going “boing!” like a 3-in-1 oil can. That is the kiss of death for a panel like this – you CANNOT fill or paint that!
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- I tried all kinds of tricks to get access to the backside of the skin, but in the end I had to cut that whole section out and replace it with a new panel TIG-welded in, then carefully re-punched for the correct holes.
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- In the dull etch primer, she looks GREAT! All of the imperfections in the lower section of the door were already there from the previous skinning at another shop. I did do what I could to smooth that out as much as possible so that area will need less filler this time.
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- YES!!!! Are you kidding me!?! This was a fun one – sometimes it’s nice to be the hero…
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- This door will now get a full coat of filler, which will be block sanded back down until very little remains, but the surface is smoothed. I’m sure that the customer just wanted this damage – and this unfortunate experience – erased. I was happy – and proud – to be the guy who did just that for them!
