So I have a big bondo crack on my drivers side door, c/o the previous owner.



I really want to get it to a body shop by next Spring for fresh paint, so I decided it was finally time to crack this off and see what lies beneath.


The 2 pieces I busted off were about 1/8" thick and it looks like there's even more below it. And obviously lots of water was getting trapped in there and rusted the door skin. The hinges and all the accessories inside still work well.

Would it be more economical to replace the whole door, or have the body shop clean it up and fix it? The only junkyards around here are well picked, and the nearest good one is a two hour drive both ways.

 

Id see how bad it really is before you replace the door could be cheaper to fix it if its not to bad

 

How come pictures are either so small you can't tell what you're looking at or so big you have zoom in so far you can't read the text.

 

Probably going to need a new door skin... That's what my quarter panel on the 87 looked like before I pulled 2 pieces of 5/8" thick filler off that looked like shark fins. And underneath was a 3" hole with a full foot of rust around it. Open the door up and you're going to find a big mess.

 

Dig it all out first then figure out if the need to replace. You might be able to pound out most of it and then re-fill. Rust will be the deciding factor.

 

I chiseled some of it away with a heatgun and a flat head screw driver.



This is the bounds of the rust. The bondo was still about 1/8 thick or less in the rest of what I pulled off. Not sure how much the bondo covers all together, but about 6 more inches forward on the door the taps start to sound a lot more metallic.

 

Reskin the door or get another door.

 

Oh man, that's ugly.

Door dents are really hard to fix. Its a long piece of unsupported sheet metal. It's tough to get a body dolly on the back of it for shaping. Once it's buckled the metal doesn't want to go back to its original shape - it will spring back into the dent shape. Plus, you have some rusty pits under there that must be dealt with as well.

If you can get a whole door skin that would be my first choice. (I haven't seen 3rd gen whole door skins for sale or I would have bought one for my car.) Skins aren't too hard to do and give you a like-new finished job. Second choice is replace the whole door (what I am currently doing). I found a good door for $50.

 

Have you removed the inner door panel to see how much damage is on the door?

 

The power windows are down and the battery is currently dead. Plus the inside of the skin is covered in sound deadener. But a few years ago when I put the deadener in I didn't see anything questionable about it. No rust or major concavity. The bondo crack was already there when I bought the car in '02.

 

I say new door, but if you have the time, then maybe get the grinder or DA out and try to remove as much as you can to see how bad it really is.

 

I pulled my battery and still had to work my power windows. I unplugged my power window switch from the center console. I then took two short pieces of speaker wire I had laying around. Hooked one wire up to positive terminal on my car battery (inside car sitting on front floor) and other wire to negative terminal. Held them on with some tape. I connected one wire to one terminal on the window switch and then gently touch the other wire to the other terminal. This allowed me to move the window up or down with the battery and entire engine harness removed from the car!