4mula-S Fabrication: RE-SKINNED!

Here we go! Well, this door makes this the second piece on this project that will have given me a bit of trouble. The first panel was a fender that had been pushed into something and had curled it under. After I moved it back into place it had already stretched the metal when it was hit. Long story short I worked a bit to get the "waves" out of the fender.

This door was similar regarding "waves"! You'll see below that there was a previous "repair". Of course when they did they repair the panel warped slightly. By the way it was patched they obviously had no idea how to do it correctly. Not a problem..... I give them an E for effort! :)

So needless to say I inherited some issues that weren't going to make my job any easier. To make things worse I had very limited access to the back side of the door skin. This hindered my ability to hammer and dolly the HAZ (heat affected zone)(area around weld that is blue/brown) of my welds. Dollying the HAZ essentially smashes the weld flat and pushes the metal around the HAZ outward. When you weld... the metal around the HAZ contracts and tightens up. When this happens it stretches the surrounding areas (on a microscopic level). This is what causes a panel to warp from heat. Basically it shrinks. The same as if you pull two opposite corners really tight on your bed sheets. There will be a few ripples. Sheet metal does the same thing!

So as you can see there are two very poorly executed patches. Because of the proximity to each other, welding these patches in will inevitably cause a bit of warping if not done correctly. Just like the example I gave about bed sheets..... this is what will happen here. The area where the two patches are closest to each other will tighten up and cause a nice big wave. (Yes it eventually did!)

I must state it here too! NOT MY WORK! :-)

You cant see it here, but the door skin is pushed in / warped just under the "handle" area, and then just to the right of the top patch is also pushed in.

Here is the new patch I made. Here the entire panel is still "concave" or pushed inward as if someone shut the door with thier butt and pushed it in. Because the door was "oil canning" (the door skin will pop into a position of either inward or outward). This is a sign that the metal is either stretched OR there is stress elsewhere in the panel. I had planned to move forward and use the shrinking the the HAZ was going to create, to help eliminate the oil canning. Meaning it would pull the panel tight and then the stretched metal would be pulled tight and not be able to "oil can" any longer. I have done this before with success, but this time I was not so fortunate!

Here is the lower original patch.

New patch!

Here is the only picture I have of the finished panel. NOT GOOD!

Because I was not able to hammer and dolly the HAZ the panel shrank around the patches so much it pulled a sizable warp between the two corners of the patches that are close to each other. This along with the panel being previously stretched made me stop and reassess the whole execution and method I was going to fix this. As you might notice there is a soap stone outline now!

New patch! Pretty!!!!

Committed now!

There is a heavier piece of metal where the hinge attaches to the door, that I had to drill the spot welds to get loose. Here I have drilled new holes to plug weld the piece back in place while I get the new skin in place.