Ford Blitz Restoration/Rebuild

[Private_collector]

Driver door 4.jpg driver door damage 1.jpg driver door damage 2.jpg driver door damage 3.jpg driver door repair 1.jpg
It took 6 hours, but the door is almost done. I still have to apply some filler to outside skin, where I welded up 6 holes. The poorly repaired section on hinge inside edge was worse than I had expected. Once the old 'repair' was removed, the full extent was seen. I considered replacing the whole strip along this side, but settled for a massive amount of re-welding, inserting two patch plates and a light skim of body filler to cover some grinding lows.

More to come!

[Private_collector]

driver door damage 4.jpg driver door repair 2.jpg driver door repair 3.jpg
This tiny little countersunk hole caused me the most pain today. I attempted to just apply weld to create the rough profile and finish with a good filing. Every time I touched the area with MIG, I blew the hole bigger, so that method ended fast. Finally settled for manufacturing a new countersunk hole (or 1/2 of one). The shape was easily formed using a broken flathead V8 intake valve head placed onto a pre-drilled piece of sheet metal, and belted repeatedly into a length of soft wood, until a 'countersink' was created. A small magnet inserted into door, held the patch in place for welding.

Welding it on wasn't as hard as I had expected, but here's where the pain comes in. A weld spark managed to get into my welding helmet, bounce off that, and into my ear! I promptly exclaimed 'oh darn!', or perhaps something ever so slightly more ribald. To be honest, the actual comment contained a reference to the son-of-god and a speculation on potential dubious parentage. Oh well! What doesn't kill you.........makes you angrier.

The hardest part of this repair, was in flattening the weld back to panel level. The grinder couldn't be used because the area is too tight.

More to follow.

[Keith Webb]

Tony, enjoying your enthusiasm, great work and the dedicate to take pictures and share them with us.

[Private_collector]

driver door damage 5.jpg driver door repair 4.jpg
The sandblasting revealed a dent along to lower part of lock edge. With time getting away from me, I decided against my original idea to weld a plate to the low spot and lift this out with a dent-puller. A 4 inch strip of body filler had to do in this instance. I don't like doing that and am trying not to dwell on it, or I might be tempted to grind it out and go with original plan.
driver door damage 6.jpg driver door repair 5.jpg driver door repair 6.jpg
Every corner of the lock access opening was cracked, in some places very badly. The missing bit remained missing, despite a lengthy search in my original shed. If you remember, I removed that piece when door hardware was stripped months ago and put it in a 'safe place'. It is still safe! In it's absence, I had to make a new piece to weld in. The middle two holes are a minor design improvement I added for strength. Through these holes I welded the repair patch to the door frame, making the area a little more rigid. I also applied a small spot of weld around the corner, in hope of holding the little 'flap' a little more firmly also.

Last part to follow.

[Private_collector]

driver door repair 7.jpg driver door repair 8.jpg
Jeezus, I hate panelbeating!
driver door primed 1.jpg driver door primed 2.jpg
The inside of door is now all primed, with spray putty & stop putty applied sparingly. The outside will be to primer stage next Saturday, and weather permitting, door will be painted on Sunday. Hinges are the next thing to tackle. They will need fresh pins.

I am considering sending the roof for blasting soon, to see what evils lay in store there. No plans to start work on that yet, but pays to be fore-warned with these things!
door curtain frame jig.jpg
The door curtain frame jig is now finished. There will be a smaller, less complex jig made, for positioning of the flat metal plate at rear of the frame. That jig will also setup location of support legs for passenger side door as well as location for a small metal 'catch' that the access flap closes onto.

Well....thats it for today.

[hrpearce]

Great work Tony, I haven't progressed to MIG yet I'm still stuck in the oxy era.

[Private_collector]

Originally Posted by hrpearce

Great work Tony, I haven't progressed to MIG yet I'm still stuck in the oxy era.

Robert,

I can't bring myself to try Oxy. I could do great damage with one of those.
The bottles alone cost a fortune! Yes, thats the reason, bottle price, not that those bloody things scare the hell out of me

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony

As you have figured out fatigue failure of the front doors of Patter 13 are extremely common. What is even more annoying is when they reoccur several years later. Hope to have found two of problems causing the occurrence:

Welding up the crack on the outside doesn't really get the inner plate well attached. The inner plate were originally spot weld in place before the out side door skin was applied. One solution to this is to drill through the outer skin but not through the inner plate then plug weld the drill holes which welds the inner and outer layers together.

The other cause of the re-occurrence of the fatigue crack or a loose feel to the door is a little strange, failure of the spot welds of outer skin where it is folded around the inner door panel. Tried rewelding with a pinch spot welder no good, just enough rust in the folded edge to prevent good weld.
Solution was again to drill and plug weld the three layers of steel as both sides are exposed, drilled 1/4" through all three layers every two inches near the hinge. Then with a brass heat sink against one side just welded the holes up and ground them smooth.

Re-occurrence of cracks also seems to happen when a fatigue crack is just welded up. I've been told that with cracks it is important to actual terminate them by drilling a small hole just past the end of the visible crack and then to actually cut the crack open to a with of 1/16 or even 1/8 of an inch then weld the joint up. This is supposed to be particularly important if the crack is to be ground smooth on one side. What has peoples experience been with this approach?


Cheers Phil

Cheers Phil