Get some dinitrol into the the crash bar/bottom hinge

[chrisP]

Hi I just wanted to draw your attention to something that could cause a lot of problems and may be preventable
While respraying my car, I purchased a couple of spare doors and one of them is in a terrible state, the bottom hinge has rusted away from the crash bar. It seems to be a design issue that means that water can settle in the hinge, because it is glued to the inner door skin with out any drain hole. from the outside it will look ok, but from inside the door it is another matter, I will be spraying lots of rust killer and preventative oil into all my other doors and would recommend that if you have the door panel off and the speaker panel removed for any reason you do the same.
I have separated the inner and outer skins in order to see what is required to weld in new metal - the door beam/crash bar needs to be removed completely and I will be doing this next weekend.

Chris

[HJ2]

Top tip!

Please do share some pictures of the process
Edit: Ah! Pics just now added, thanks!

[dapinky]

If the damage isn't too 'spread' it is possible to do a repair with the door in situ....

...it takes a lot of patience with a dremmel, but it can be done.

With my old car I first noticed the problem when I found that there were a few rusty flakes of metal on the sill under the hinges when you opened the door. Having replaced the other door a few years earlier, I knew what the problem was straight away.

Unfortunately, by the time you get rusty flakes falling off, the hinge is already starting to sag (hence the flakes!) and you need to act quickly before it gets terminal.

I had to remove all the door card etc (obviously!), then it was possible to cut the inner door shell away in the dodgy corner to expose the metalwork. I spent ages attacking the rust, and eventually got to a stage where the hinge was attached to the door with a very small bit of steel. I tack welded some bracing strips to hold it in the right place, then replaced all the rusted bits with good metal, and extended it to the solid bits of the door beam, then tidied it all up before repainting the metalwork.

The section of inner doorskin I removed was replaced and held in place with a couple of thin aluminium brackets and pop rivets - then just replace the doorcard for an invisible repair.

If that sounds like a lot of work - you're right! It aint a nice and/or easy job - but It needed to be done. I was fortunate that the welding repairs didn't cause any issues to the bonded steel/glassfibre bits, and didn't sink enough heat into the panel to disturb the original paint..... I was fully expecting to have to paint the whole door, but I escaped.

When my current car went for a re-paint, the doors came off and I spent a fair amount of time cleaning up the rust from the lower hinge on the drivers door - it hadn't caused any structural damage yet, but had thinned out/holed in one point (lower edge - where you can't see it or get to it until the door is removed) and has been sorted out now.


This matter was highlighted a few years ago, but it's never a bad idea to check yours NOW. As I say, by the time it becomes obvious, it *may* be too late - certainly too late for a simple job.

This sort of thing, along with the sill outriggers, is what will see off a lot of our cars if left untreated - there are no new panels left to buy, and repair of what you have is going to be the only option.

Obviously, my way of doing it is the bodgey/lazy way, and Chris is doing it a much better way by seperating all the bits of the door - the main thing is to get it treated before it falls apart!

[Artaban]

The trouble is its very difficult to see the state of the hinge and my first symptom (that I noticed) was the door dropping. Looking back I should have noticed the bits of rust that had fallen down but since i couldn't see where they had come from i just ignored them. Big mistake.

If you don't want to do it yourself then Colin at Revline in Whitley Bay Tyne & Wear did a really good job on mine. He repaired it in a similar way to Daves method, repainted it and then covered it all in waxoyl. Mine was done about 3 years ago and has remained perfect since with no movement in the door at all. Unfortunately I have no pics of the repair. He was going to email them to me so I could share the process on the forum.
At the moment I am favouring Fluid Film over Waxoyl as I find it easier to apply and it seems to spread more easily. I figured if it was designed for use with salt water then anything we throw at it won't be a problem. Available in the UK at http://www.marineco.co.uk/fluidfilm.html

Thanks to Chris for the early warning.

Andy

[chrisP]

So this weekend I took the door apart, this is a horrible job that takes along time, and you would be very lucky to do it without damaging the paint (not something I had to worry about). The tools I used were stanley knives, hot knives, windscreen removal tool and a multi tool with a wood cutting blade. Finally after separating the door skin, it was time to remove the crash bar, this is glued with polyurethane adhesive, with most of it being concentrated around the door locking mechanism.

With the crash bar removed, i could figure out what the bar looked like before it rusted away, make new parts and weld them in.

Next is to remove the existing door and use the car as a jig to weld on the hinge.

[cliff]

Thanks Chris, just what I need, more project creep.

I had a good look round mine recently and they seem to be alright and I have some dinitrol in the garage. Great tip though, thanks.

[epipete]

...... it was possible to cut the inner door shell away in the dodgy corner to expose the metalwork!

Dave, where did you cut?

[dapinky]

Pete,

I made cuts as shown here:-

image.jpeg

The black lines were cut as shown, the white ones are 'round the corner' against the door skin.

When you're looking at the part, you'll be able to see what I mean. The actual lower hinge bar exits through a pre-formed hole moulded in the fibreglass, and i cut to that existing hole, and then extended it a bit.

Any cuts you may need to make will depend on how much of the inner door hinge area you need to expose to remove/replace - when you look at it, you will see that it attaches to a flat(ish) plate which extends up and down the door for a bit (and all the way across) - if you're fortunate, the rust won't have got too far into that plate as it is bonded directly to the outer skin.... any welding to it needs to be done carefully to minimise heat getting into the fibreglass and ruining the paint (unless you are going to paint it all anyway).

It is better to remove one bigger bit than numerous smaller bits - far easier when it comes to replacing them.

[chrisP]

I have finally got the hinge welded in place, I took the existing door off and used the door locking mechanism and existing top hinge as a jig. The welding went well and I will soon be gluing the door back together. One point i noted was that the is a lot of movement when I trial fitted the inner door skin to the crash bar. it is going to be fun trying to line it up as the pu adhesive cures as there must be 10mm of movement in twist (not up down or front to back) And obviously this will affect the way the window lines up.