Good morning, friends. While the project moves along, it is moving along slowly. Quite a bit of change going on in life. However - to provide an update I am working on doors at the moment. I purchased a set of doors from a vendor on here, and they turned out to be in about the exact same shape as my original doors. So, after paying for them and shipping them freight....I'm pretty much right back where I started.
Full of filler and fiberglass, I got started in stripping them down to investigate.
I started by taking apart all of the hardware and what window pieces were intact:
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I noticed right away the whole outer skin was a sheet of filler......and the bottom completely stuffed with fiberglass and filler. I mean, look at that bottom left corner. I hope by now, you can all see why my love and dedication to Land Cruisers, specifically FJ40's is fading. Just worn out.
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Here is what the door ACTUALLY looks like, with a sample of the filler in my hand:
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Knowing how susceptible these doors are to warping and moving around, I wanted to only cut out what is/was necessary in having a solid remaining door. I also wanted to cut along the door in such a way that welding in a new piece would be easy to grind/massage into a seamless line. I decided to cut like so:
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In the above photo - you can also see how weak the front of the door is....and I tried to poke and dig around on it to expose the rust - but keep in mind the skin is also warped from whatever life the door led anyway. So..../shrug....whats a guy supposed to do? Buy ebay doors? Risk another used set? Press forward I guess.
I had purchased from real steel a bottom door set that I set aside HOPING that these new doors would be as solid as advertised. So, at least I had some good steel to use. So I started to trim and fit the interior bottom of the door:
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After an hour or so, I was able to massage it into place:
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It should probably go without saying that there are physics at work here with the front skin and the rear/interior of the door. So, I am using some 1" square tubing to tack weld to the front/exterior of the door so that it forces the exterior panel completely straight.
The reason for this, is that when you disconnect the two panels, the exterior of the door wants to "buck tooth" out (for the lack of a better term) so much so that when I test fitted the door, the bottom edge was about 3/8" flared out. Thus, in employing 1" steel tubing in a vertical fashion, I'll force the exterior flat, so that when I tack those holes in the inside bottom trim pictured above, the door will be flat and then I can remove the 1" square tubing.
While not perfect, I am going to attempt to "run" with a proper seal and fill job on the exterior of the door. However, the more I see it sitting there, the more I don't like it. The weight of the project is a constant nag. What to do....how to fix it. How can I trust people when I am awaiting a part in the mail?
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See in this photo the condition. I'll try to fill/weld any hole and keep heat out of it. You can see the layer of bondo on the door skin as well, yes? Direct to steel no less. So, while a bit "johnny raincloud" This is where I am at. If, in a rare occasion I have an hour or three to spare and I have the energy, I'll tinker on the FJ40. Otherwise, it remains a rash on my backside.
Until we meet again!
"The more I dug into them, the more I am finding out they are hiding more than the current administration under the paint. Also frustrating as I am digging into them, is to find out that there are more options on the market today for a set of doors. The ship has sailed on beginning with a fresh or decent set, so I decided to just press on."I finally found some time to get back to the front doors. In all seriousness, I never thought I'd be this 'stuck in the mud' with a car project. Body work, by far, seems to be the crux of any project I get myself into. This portion of the project is, as you all know, just the pits.
As I had mentioned before, I purchased these doors from a mud member which were supposed to be clean and near perfect. The more I dug into them, the more I am finding out they are hiding more than the current administration under the paint. Also frustrating as I am digging into them, is to find out that there are more options on the market today for a set of doors. The ship has sailed on beginning with a fresh or decent set, so I decided to just press on.
Getting back to work while dealing with house projects and the little German car, I needed to seal up the bottom of the driver door - the outside was spottable and given the heat/warping difficulties decided to leave it alone. The inside needed to be patched, however. In finishing the exterior of the driver door, I poked all around with a screwdriver to find any weak areas and filled it in with the welder:
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Once that was done it was fairly easy to grind smooth to a point where the exterior of the door will turn out really nice.
On the other side of the firewall, Olive, our new Golden stood watch. At many other various points in this thread, you can see Lola, who we lost last year. I never was a "dog lover", but Lola broke me and when we lost her and I had to carry her away - I knew Olive would be inevitable. So, here she is.
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Shown here, I am tacking in the new bottom area. The "ridge" of the Real Steel door bottom is more aggressive than the original door, so as I am spotting those areas in, I used a body hammer to tap/blend that ridge down. I guess the only real good news here, is that these are original Toyota doors.....and will have good steel in them.
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While doing some yard work, I'd let it cool...go rake...come back, tack a few more....lather rinse repeat until it was all filled in. (I used weld through primer generously on the inside of the mating areas and will also fluid film the inside when all done.
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Ground smooth, ready for additional paint removal/stripping and then epoxy primer, filler, and more fun.
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Also, I am planning on removing the air injection rail, engine hooks to have them properly zinc coated. The gold rattle can is unbecoming of the level of detail I wanted here, and stick out in all of the wrong ways. I plan on properly addressing this in the weeks to come, when I get a small stack of things to drop off at the shop.
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As a guy who just bought a 78 last week and is starting to research some build threads, what are some of the door options that you wish you'd explored? Also, what a great looking dog you have in Olive!