Ford Blitz Restoration/Rebuild

[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

[Private_collector]

Thanks Phil,

That had not occured to me. Next weekend I will sand back around both hinges and follow your advice.

Does the thick plate extend to whole size of the door edge? Is there a possibility of drilling through where the plate isn't?

T.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony

Just went out to the shop and looked in the doors of the HUP through the lock assembly hole. Both doors have full length plates which is much heavier gage steel than the door shell.

One of mine my backing plates was loose enough that when drilling the holes it started pushing the backing plate away, so stuck the hinge in place with the bolts to hold the layers tight together while drilling and welding.

Fix the front hinge area on my HUP for the first time some 25 years ago, so if the 2nd repair last as long I won't complain much.

The loading on the hinges of the front door of the Pattern 13 are ridiculous because they are placed so close together. Interestingly the side and rear doors of the HUP have a hole at the bottom of the door that would allow you to slide a new or additional plate in. Not sure what that would do to the hinge alignment though.

In the picture below you can see cracks in mine drivers side door, you are looking at the lower hinge are, if you look at the where the outer skin is folded over you can just see a little line of rust which is the area of movement between the outer skin and the inner door panel.



I'll try to remember to gather all of the door hinge before and after photos an post them on my web site.

Hope this is of help to you and others at this point in their Pattern 13 restorations or ongoing maintenance.

Cheers Phil