OK, so I can't take my own advice

[Willowbilly3]

To only have one project going at a time, well....
Waiting on the ends to make the PS hose for the 56 caddy and itching to get started on my 40 one ton panel. So I dragged one of the doors in today. It came to me with no back doors and I scored a rear section of another panel. You can see the passenger door needed some work.



I cut out the dented sections so I could straighten them and do some work on the hinge mounting. Also the edge of the door was buckled on that lower dent and I got that straightened up. Top piece is going back in. Rain all day tomorrow so hopefully I'll have this baby ready to hang.





I'll have to build about 3-4 inches of the inside bottom since it's basically gone from rust. I love this tin work, even though I'm a rank amateur hack.

 

[23crate]

nice work Willow. can I suggest you cut out the inside of the panel as quite often the external finish is easier to re-construct if no welding is required..

regards crate

 

[Willowbilly3]

That kink would have been hard to get out of the side with the skin and crimped over edge still on it. Plus the inner skin is welded to the hinge supports and the outer skin wasn't.

 

[Old Iron]

Nice score on the rear section [P [P [P

 

[Willowbilly3]

Nice score on the rear section [P [P [P

It cost me dearly, almost as much as I paid for the panel truck. $400. But it was right here in town and I got the top door checks which are almost impossible to find.

 

[bob w]

Heck, that's just a little sheet metal project. You're not violating your principles at all.

 

[billy]

Heck, that's just a little sheet metal project. You're not violating your principles at all.

i met him
hes one of those guys that'll blow up if he aint banging on sumpin...

 

[23crate]

ha! I hadn't considered that quite so well- to many Friday beers -- apologies !

quite fond of those old panels,, we don't get so many here ,, aside from a few mid 50s F100's

looking forward to more progress

crate

 

[Country Misfit]

Are you going to chop the top?

 

[Willowbilly3]

Are you going to chop the top?

Haha, I've already bit off more than my lazy butt can handle with the scope of this project. But I do have a visor to give it a little more sinister look.

 

[Willowbilly3]

Heck, that's just a little sheet metal project. You're not violating your principles at all.

Well, I was pretty on fire with the 56 caddy, and still peg away on it. It doesn't owe me anything and I like looking at it. It' still needs a water pump (200$+) before I can drive it so it's waiting on the next windfall.
The 62 Ranchero that's been sitting patienly for 3 months might have to go bye bye to keep the addiction fueled. I really didn't have big plans for it anyway, just took it in trade but I had toyed with the idea of a shop truck. My plan for the panel is to be my daily driver though and replace the Aerostar for a picker van. So it really is my main project.

 

[earthman]

cool projects. It is great to have a choice about which cool ride to drive

 

[Willowbilly3]

So here is the outside so far, some welds to finish but the big dents gone and the hinges all fixed.





Then today I started on the bottom inside. I just had one corner left so I started with the since I had a basic pattern



Also I drilled some homes to use plates and bolts to get a big kink out of the edge.



The copper bus bar I backed it with to weld the holes shut.

 

[Willowbilly3]

Ok, now it gets kinda ugly. The old door is thin here and all I have is .030 wire so I'm having to feed more wire in by hand to fill and act as a heat sink. I got too much heat with all the filling and big piles of weld so it ended up pretty wavey but hey, the door will have a bottom and be solid when I'm done.
I had to take a break from it so I worked on the 56 Caddy all afternoon.
Anyway, here's where I quit.

 

[23crate]

nice work !!!!!!!!!

 

[Bamamav]

A little bondo and you'll never see any bad spots in you welds.
Looking good there WB. [cl

 

[Old Iron]

I've done so much rust repair in the last 4 years that I shuttered when I looked at your pics [

 

[Willowbilly3]

Normally I wouldn't mess with any car that had this much rust but these back doors are a little hard to come by.

 

[Old Iron]

I understand, I've looked at panels and it is real hard to find the back doors in any kind of shape.

 

[Willowbilly3]

Here's today, went much better. All that's left is finish welding and some grinding (all my welding ends with lots of grinding anymore)

Got the other half built, had to basically guess what it was supposed to look like.



Cut the rusty door skin now that I didn't need it to guide me. Finished up some welding from the inside. Used my copper bus bar to back up where ever I could and that speeds things up a lot.







The donor door for the skin panel.