1963 Singer Vogue, seeing doors in my sleep!!!

Norman, I've just remembered, last year I got sent 2 lots of Green Ti instead of 1 by mistake. I contacted the seller and they weren't interested in me sending the extra one back, so it's still in my shed unopened.
I'm not going to paint any more cars and I can think of no better place for it to go than on your Singer.
If you want it, send me a message with your address and I'll get it couriered.

I would seal it with a coat of epoxy primer before moving to high build, when you flat the high build back stop when the epoxy starts to show.

Hi Mark, I did seal the car with epoxy before filler as you had previously suggested, I have rubbed it through in a few areas. I will stick another coat of epoxy on it and see where I go from there. Thanks to everyone for the advice, Norman

Hi guys, Just incase you think I have run off, here is a small update. My sons came to give me a lift with the doors to fix them to the shell, they are very heavy. This is where everything started to go wrong, the doors don’t fit in the holes anymore. Not just one but all of them. We had a think about what could have moved during welding but couldn’t decide on anything. The shell was braced across the door openings and between the two sides. The front doors foul the front wings and the back edge of the doors foul the B posts. The rear doors foul the front doors and the rear edge of the rear doors foul the C posts. We did get it better by heating the front door hinges and knocking ten bells out of them to shift them forward slightly. I had to trim a bit of the rear edge of the front wing to stop the fouling. The rear hinges I couldn’t get to bend so they were cut and repositioned. I them had to trim a bit of the body at the C post. I have to say I was for giving up and scrapping the car I was so sick off it. My sons said to give up for the night and have some beer which was a good idea. The next day I started to tidy up some of the work we had done so have some progress again. I don’t have pictures of this but will take some tomorrow.

The next thing I have to look at are the doors themselves. I knew they were needing repaired, some bits were worse than I thought others were better. Here are a few pictures of the doors.











These pictures are the inside of the door, jeeeezus.








I must admit I have been jumping around the car refurbishing other parts in preparation for going back on the door. It all has to get done. We have been stripping the front crossmember removing the hubs and springs etc. I think a teabag has less holes in it than this crossmember. I am trying to clean off the rust to establish what needs plating. I have also been sorting through the various boxes of parts trying to establish what I need.

I came to the conclusion that there must be lots of death trap classic cars on the road, now MOT exempt, what a mistake that is.

Well that’s it for now, thanks for reading if you have made it this far. All the best, Norman

I think it’s inevitable when you do this amount of work to a car, that it’s going to move. If you watch programs on YouTube they usually have the car on a jig so it stays in shape. Far beyond what us mere mortals can afford.

If you have the car on a rotisserie I would put it back on its wheels - or axle stands under the suspension pick up points, before you finalise any panel gaps. You’d be surprised how much cars bend on the rotisserie.

Regardless, if the gaps have closed, your more than capable of sorting them.

Thanks for the encouragement and explanations. The front doors had to be moved forward by about 6mm and the rears by about the same. I am working toward rebuilding/repairing the front crossmember and the rear springs and axle to put it back on its feet before finalising the gaps. I must admit I was so disheartened when the doors wouldn’t go back on. Onwards and upwards every little bit done is a step closer to the end.

That’s worth a look, I was going to remove it all and fit some kind of sealer strip, my son (the joiner) says you get some self stick window stuff that would work.

Don't give up Norman, I found my doors did not fit after finishing painting the car. Drivers one fitted with a bit of hinge heating and bending and a bit of the front corner trimming off.

Passenger door needed 3mm taking off the whole front edge, it took me two months to pluck up the motivation to slice it off and weld it all back up again. Then of course I had to sand the door back and paint the door all over again.

Very disheartening! As others have said, get it stood on stands on the suspension points before doing final fitting.

The panel tolerances on my car from the factory are about a quarter inch.
That's them putting it together on a jig.

Tweak the gaps, that's well within what they managed to achieve when they spot welded it together.
There was plenty of post production adjustment before the shells went to paint. Fret not, you've made it strong.

Phil