How I put pre 74 doors on my 82 body
Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2013 6:14 pm
From what I gather, the door latch and striker location changed in 74. What I can say for sure is that doors from a 70 do not work on a later car. There is about an inch or so difference in the latch and striker locations. I wanted to use my early doors because of the handles and because they are in really nice shape. The donor doors were were all beat up with rust holes everywhere. Here's how I got by it:
First, Here's a couple pictures of the differences:
stripped the door that i'm using down to the shell:
For the pattern, i just cut some poster board in a shape that I thought would be an easy cut. I also made sure it would cover the latch location, and screw holes on both doors. Once i had it the way i wanted it, i outlined it on both doors:
Here are some pictures of the measurements I made to make sure i put the patch in the right spot:
Here is the patch cut out of the donor door. I cleaned it up in the blast cabinet, filled the holes from where i removed the spot weld where the bracket were in the donor door. (the earlier doors didn't have that bracket). then I sprayed some weld through primer on the inside part of the patch to keep it from rusting until i coat the inside of the door.
Then i set it in place of the early door and took some measure measurements to make sure it looked good then i cut it out and cleaned the edges for welding
After I was sure it looked good, i set the patch in place, tacked it in, took some more measurements, then welded and grinded the welds down.
Then i put the latch in and remeasured to make sure it was in the right position. Turned out perfect... (you can scroll up and check the original measurements):
First, Here's a couple pictures of the differences:
stripped the door that i'm using down to the shell:
For the pattern, i just cut some poster board in a shape that I thought would be an easy cut. I also made sure it would cover the latch location, and screw holes on both doors. Once i had it the way i wanted it, i outlined it on both doors:
Here are some pictures of the measurements I made to make sure i put the patch in the right spot:
Here is the patch cut out of the donor door. I cleaned it up in the blast cabinet, filled the holes from where i removed the spot weld where the bracket were in the donor door. (the earlier doors didn't have that bracket). then I sprayed some weld through primer on the inside part of the patch to keep it from rusting until i coat the inside of the door.
Then i set it in place of the early door and took some measure measurements to make sure it looked good then i cut it out and cleaned the edges for welding
After I was sure it looked good, i set the patch in place, tacked it in, took some more measurements, then welded and grinded the welds down.
Then i put the latch in and remeasured to make sure it was in the right position. Turned out perfect... (you can scroll up and check the original measurements):
