cudaeh

iTrader: (2)

ok i understand that 4th gen birds and camaro's use fiberglass for the doors , but what would the best way to shave the door hadels on a metal door car be? i was reading one artical on line about it and they left out some very important details.
what was said was "cut out the existing door hardwear mounting surfices with a plasma cutter or a cutt off wheel. use the outer door skin to help contor a piece of 24guage sheet metal. while holding the piece of sheet metal agenst the back side of the door score an accurate 'tracing' of the hole you created. cut out sheet metal as accuratly as possible . with a piece of tape holding the sheet metal in place tack the corners down with a mig welder." now here is where they threw me. in the artical they totaly skip over how to blend the patch you crated with the rest of the sheet metal. they go from the patch tacked in all four corners with spot welds to a perfectly blended patch. thats picture wise. now in the artical they skip from "tack the corners" to "use of a body hammer and body dolly might be nessessary to acheave a nice smooth transition"
so far i have gotten two oppinions on the subject
my fathers
"just tack weld it into place from the back side and bondo the front side"
i dont like this option because if i royaly jack up the pint job i want to be able to strip it back down to sheet metal without having to go back over it with bondo
and a co-workers solution
" take a torch and heat up the sheet metal and add solder to the edges to fill in the space"
as i recall solder gets verry runny and drippy quick.

could i just mig weld all around the edges of the patch and grind it down? would the body sheet metal grind quicker than the weld? if it does wont it leave a bit of a 'hill'
ok lots of crap to take in all at onece but if some one has some advice or even a good "how to" link would be great. please let me know

jRaskell

iTrader: (1)

Your best bet would be to have somebody that has experience do the welding for you. The challenge here is to get the plate welded in without heat distorting the door or the plate itself. You have to weld it in very short sections, allowing it to cool and tapping out any minor distortions with the hammer/dolly. The reason this is always skipped over is because this is more of an art than a process. It's something you just have to learn from experience. If you've never done it before, you probably won't have a whole lot of success on your first few tries. Either practice on a lot of scrap first, or just have somebody that knows what they're doing take care of it.

I wouldn't even waste my time with solder, it's too soft, you're just asking for trouble that. Brazing may work ok if you want to try that route, but I don't know how either takes to being painted and finished and how they'll hold up over time for a finished body surface.

VIP1

Before you do any welding the piece has to have the right contour to match the area on the door. You can start by bending the general shape with your hands. Some other tools to mention are: english wheel, body hammer and sand bag, dolly and hammer. For this job, you'll probably just need your hands, body hammer, sand bag (maybe) and dolly. As jRaskell mentioned, its an art form more than a process. It takes some practice to mold metal into the shape you want it and not need much body filler to smooth out transitions. There was an aticle on it in an episode of Horsepower a while back. CarCraft and HotRod have articles on this regularly. If you check out thier sites, you may find the article online.

EDIT:
You didn't say what kind of hole will be left after removing the handles. If its a small hole (1 inch for example), I have heard of people just welding in a washer and then use a hammer and dolly to mold it in.

Here are some links I found:
http://hotrodders.com/kb/body-exteri...r_handles.html
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t16500.html
Sorry, not pics there, but more detail.
As for welding: spot weld it and alternate where you weld to prevent warping.

--VIP1

cudaeh

iTrader: (2)

yeah ive got some people to help that are really good with welding and understand the whole fear of destortion from heat. i have no doubt on contoring the metal ive been doing body work for some time now and im getting pritty good at it... i just have never had to replace any metal before so i dont know what to do it with. it will be a farly large hole to fill in addition to the door locks the stock hadels will be shaved as well. if you can recall what 70s mopars have. just a simple rectangular hadel about 3in by 5in. so the hole is about 2 X 4 some where around there...
but other than the warping issue welding all the way around and grinding it down is the best bet?
i would like to do as much on this as possible but if an expereanced shop can do it for pritty cheap (cheaper than renting a welder) i would be much better off doing that.
no fear of shops
but i just like to be able to say that i worked for mine .... weard but its just how i opperate.
thank you for all the advise though
and thank you for the links!

VIP1

I know what you mean. Good Luck.

--VIP1