I have a pair of NOS GM door skins I want to install on my GTA. The original doors have a few dings and wavy areas on them and I want the car to remain bondo/filler free. Is this a relatively easy procedure that any body shop can do?

Has anyone here had door skins installed on their 3rd gen? If so, what were your experiences in the workmanship that was done? For example, did the seam sealer, welding, fitment, ect...look factory in the way they were installed? Thanks.....

 

Locate a local dent removal guy that has been doing it for many years. He may be able to remove the waves also. Not sure how close you are to Huntington Beach, but Jeff at Beach Cities PDR (beachcitiespdr.com) can hook you up. He's a friend of mine and I have seen his work. If the door is wavy and has dents, he may be able to straighten it up without you needing paint or new skins. Check him out. He does the dent work for Chip Foose, Overhaulin and other Auto experts.

 

Scott,
Was that the guy at Indy??? if it is I have seen that guy work... Holy cow it is impressive, and it is reasonable pricing to boot...

John

 

Yep, that was Jeff and Terry in Indy. Jeff was the taller guy with the camera and all the Chip Foose autographed items. Terry is from Kansas.

 

I could not figure out if he had a California accent, or a slight Australian Accent...

John

 

Since when does CA have an accent?! The rest of the country are the ones with an accent lmao...

Great info BTW, I'm going to look this guy up...

 

It is all a matter of perspective

John

 

x3 on the dent removal. Can you post some pics of what you're dealing with? Keep in mind with door skins there will be some filler used to make them look right. Another option would be to simply find a good set of used doors and slap em on, it would probably be much cheaper than the labor involved with having the skins replaced and you wouldn't have any filler.. If you are totally against filler paintless dent removal and replacing the doors with used are your best bets.

 

I also agree with the dent removal. But I have to say if they are just dings a little Bondo will not hurt and it would be so thin it wouldn't be detectable with a magnet. As 89RS Power said, used doors is a good option. I have used aftermarket newer parts and they rust quicker than a used rust free door would. You just have to make sure there is no rust tucked up inside the door. No matter how hard you try, you wont have a filler free car because filler is used at the factory in the joints on the roof. I hope this helps.

 

What's the point of using filler and repainting the door if it's small? Thta's what PDR specializes in! Even if the door does need to be repainted, bondo is not required, so why use it? Believe it or not, my car had about 6 dings in the doors and fenders when I got it. I am still maintaining original paint because of PDR. I also dropped a broom on my hood . I fixed it with PDR.

One thing that most people don't see is the indentation caused by the 3 angles coming together at the front of the wheel lip on the front end. The body line and the 2 from the wheel opening cause the fender to sink due to metal stretching above the turn signal. I have also removed that wave on my car. It's considered over-restoring if it was done in a body shop, but since I was just playing around, it's still considered unrestored, but smoother than factory.

Most waves are caused by the appearance of lows and highs. People leaning against a door panel can distort and cause what's called a soft dent moving the metal to become high on the sides of the soft dent. Raising the soft dent and tapping down the highs will smooth it out. The highs are caused by displacement of the metal from the lows. I have seen waves removed by just reshaping the highs forcing the "extra" metal to move into the low areas. If the door is in great shape except for this, call Jeff! He does beautiful work and was showing me his "wave" removal last fall. Absolutely amazing work.

 

Well said. If it dont need repainted, dent removal is definately the way to do it and the cheapest I would think. I was suggesting filler as an alternative to the cost and trouble of new door skins. In the past when I have had dents, I always tried to push or pull them out to the best of my ability. Then if there was a slight impression left, I would fill it. But if you are trying to maintain your original paint, PDR is the only alternative.