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Probably one for Grumpynotherner and any other body guy's. This is an Austin Healey 3000 BT7. It has 2 new doors but the feature line is miles out. I've drawn a line roughly where the feature line should be. Also the swage is a lot sharper than the wings. The original door's swage was only a little bit higher than this and the wings had been filled to match. I think the door swage is miles out, but also think the wing is miles out too as this is not an original. Other than cutting and shutting the door to raise the line and without buying new wings what other option do I have?   |
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Panel problemsDeleted
@Deleted
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Ideally I need a good square side on pic to be able to tell but to me it looks like the swage line to the rear of the door is more or less meeting the one on the rear wing - which is the point from where I would start - it also looks like the door is a very ill fit to the aperture in general - looks to be on the rear gapping tighter at the bottom than on the top and on the front gapping tighter on the top and wider at the bottom - check the door hinges for wear on the pins / hinge boxes or any damage to hinges / hinge mounting areas first - once you have ruled this out / corrected any issues I would pack the top hinge out with shims - this should in turn open the top front gapping - close the width on the bottom front gapping whilst opening the rear bottom gapping - in turn this should correct some of the alignment on the swage between the front wing and the door - it will probably not correct all of it - worth seeing if the door can be raised up slightly - you may well have to correct the bottom edge of the door if you do so but this is easier than attempting to do something with the swage line on the door - it would also be worth exploring if you can make any adjustment on the front wing to bring the swage line down - I am guessing but it looks like the door may well have had a door skin at some stage and it's not been fitted correctly or it's a poor panel or a combination of both - the other route to go is to unpick the door skin from the frame - but this could be tricky and from experience new skins / doors are very expensive - I have tackled far worse than this before today and managed to get it straightened up - maybe if you could take a few more pics for me and check the hinges out then report back and we can go from there - Chris
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Thanks for the reply grumpy. The car is a vehicle that was restored probably in the 80's classic car boom and all repair were an abortion. The original doors were steel and rotten. These doors are brand new and when bought, the supplier said they will not fit. At the moment the door skins are loose on the frames apart from a couple of screws to hold them on. The frames are bolted on to the hinge panels. The top of the front wing is in line with the shroud and the bottom of the wing is in line with the bottom of the sill ( but if the sill has been welded on in the right place is anyone's guess but I guess it's not out by the 15mm the swage line is out). The rear of the door is not latched which is why the gap looks a bit off, but it is uniform vertically when viewed straight on. The front wing is loose on the bottom and when clamped gives a uniform gap to the door. Apologies for the poor set up of the photo. I just took a quick snap to demonstrate.
I'm just struggling to see how a can loose all the 15mm run out with out cutting the door. It actually looks like the swage line at the front of the door is heading to the floor. I've looked at other Healey's on google and this swage line is out on a high percentage of them.
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Panel problemsDeleted
@Deleted
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Ok but I don't think that you need to cut the door skin - but it does look like you will have to rework the front section of the swage line on the skin - can be done by annealing the alloy then going at it with a panel dolly & hammer - not an easy task - plenty of patience required but certainly doable
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Thanks grumpy. We'll take another look at it. It's got a brand new rear shroud too as the original was either smashed out of shape or had disintegrated where it was in contact with steel. Already done lots of annealing just to get the rear wings to fit. I think me panel beating that swage line in may be a bit (read a lot) beyond my capabilities.
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Last Edit: Jun 9, 2018 7:41:21 GMT by jonsey
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Panel problemsDeleted
@Deleted
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Pity you aren't a bit closer to me - panel beating is now a old school skill - none of the modern bodyshops have panel beaters anymore - panel fitters yes - it's very rare that anything gets straightened up now days - they just fit a new panel to it
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Jun 21, 2018 16:25:50 GMT
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Pity you aren't a bit closer to me - panel beating is now a old school skill - none of the modern bodyshops have panel beaters anymore - panel fitters yes - it's very rare that anything gets straightened up now days - they just fit a new panel to it Sorry for the late reply Grumpy only now seeing it. I totally agree. It seems everything in the motor trade has been dumbed down. Not a great deal of skilled people left. |
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