Projects My '33 PU, a truck, a build, a story *Done For 2016*

Oh, man...lower door hinge repair, remember it well! Probably the most difficult repair on the whole truck. Good luck with that! Once completed, you'll wonder why it took so long.
Truck is looking GREAT. You do excellent work.

 

Lower door hinge repair? Sheet metal tears? If so, I've got the same issue on my '34 and would like to know how you plan to address the issue!

 

@Jeff34 I'll post up pictures and detail how I attacked this common issue on these trucks.

 

I like the direction that your project is going, excellent job!!

 

how can you not like an old ford painted black keep up the good work!

 

Your pickup looks killer man! I love it; very inspiring.

 

@2deuces64 @twenty8tudor & @23dragster
Thank you very much for your kind comments!

 

Part 19 Lower door hinge debacle

A very high percentage of 32-34 trucks will have thrashed or repaired lower door hinges.
I figured it was probably due to too light of metal structure holding the hinge to the door.
The passenger door on mine was the better of the two, so I started with that one.
The door skin itself wasn't that bad, the metal was torn horizontally at the top and bottom of the hinge and accordioned back about an inch. The metal at the hinge in the jamb was torn and gone, and the hinge was loosely hanging on, still by the three factory rivets and a few spot welds.

I drilled out the rivets and spot welds and pulled the hinge out. I decided rather than re rivet it on, I would use the 5/16 fine c/s machine screws as they do on the top hinge.
The door structure consists of a U channel that is spot welded to the jamb part of the shell, it has a flat area where the hinge attaches and then returns to the U channel for the lower 5".
The flat area was all cracked and broken from all the flexing and the spot welds on the bottom were mostly torn out. I drilled the remaining ones out and removed the lower piece of the U.

It was obvious why these fail, the spot welds on the left side of the lower U channel were barely
touching right from the factory. I cut a little access opening so I could straighten and hammer/dolly
the part on the skin. I made a new flat hinge area piece and welded it in. I drilled about twice as many spot weld holes and tig welded those. Then bolted the hinge in for a test fit. Once that was done, I made a new piece for the jamb area, welded it in and used a countersink bit to be able to have the screws recessed. Then I put my little access piece back in and hammer welded it, using a toe dolly inside the door through the triangle access opening.

Kind of a tricky repair to do on a door with such little access.
I am trying to keep my feet on the repair side and not cross over to the restored side.
I guess I just want the body of this to be as nice as I hoped it was.

I also believe another contributing factor to the hinge problem, is the check rod/strap.
Either not being there, like mine, or really out of proper adjustment.
Once that happens the door can fling open so the hinge runs out of travel and all that force will get absorbed where the hinge attaches. The A pillar is so much stronger than the door shell.

Sorry for the long winded explanation.

The drivers door is so much worse, I'll take a few more pictures as I finish it.

 

Part 19.2 Drivers door hinge

Here is a couple pictures to show how bad it was.
Ugly welds on the skin, someone had hammered the jamb in and put a big blob of weld to
the inner U channel and cut below it and welded to it there also.
I'm about half done with it at this point.

I also discovered this name brush painter over. I wrote an email to that town and sent this picture hoping to find some information. They had nothing in the town records, but told me that only meant he didn't own property there. No big deal.

 

These old truck doors did take quite a beating over the years. Nice repairs.

 

Nice job on that lower door hinge repair. I bet not at all easy when working thru that triangular opening!
I had removed the outer door skin on my doors, so access was not a problem. And it was still a lot of work to do it right!

 

Man that's completely awesome! Maybe someday I'll be just as lucky and find one near Oregon in my price range

 

Thank you ! @sidevalve8ba @greaser and @snowroutes
Yeah, these doors got used and abused, and quick repairs to keep
it in service. Easy to see why so many on the farm got unbolted
and thrown in the barn or workshop if they were lucky.
It was probably easier to do that than repair them.

More repair pictures tonight.

 

Very nice build! Cool looking rear radius bar setup! How does perform?

 

Thank you! @ct1932ford
So far it seems to work well, but I haven't got it out of my little neighborhood yet.
Can't wait till I do though!

Today I got sidetracked and worked on my hood top pieces.
Lots of dents and bends and a couple tears along the hinge edge.
I love old trucks!

 

Very nice work! Thanks for showing the lower hinge repairs & explaining in detail.

 

Thanks! @triumph 1
I'll have more hinge repair pictures and an update on that,
but I got side tracked on my hood for a couple days.

 

Part 20 The hood situation

It was always weighing heavy in my mind about the hood for this.
I have two, the one that came with the truck and an orange one that I bought when I was gathering parts for the meat truck. The original one was really bent up, from dry hinges and being forced open, it also had tears along the hinge edge. The orange one, was a lot straighter, but had real heavy corrosion on the underside. I have a thing about using original parts, so I did work on it for the last couple days.

The hinge was a total mess, with a brutal farmer repair, I had spent some time trying to salvage it a while ago, but then I bought the Drake reproduction. Smart move.

Without going into a ton of detail, I did a fair bit of hammer and dolly work, welded up a spot where a fan blade had tried to escape, welded along the hinge edge. Set it on and took a look. I'll take it back off for some more clean up and touch up the paint, but for now i'll leave it on. I need to build brackets for the rear hood latches to mount to.

So now i'll get back on the drivers door hinge repair and finish that, knowing
the hood situation isn't really a situation any more.

 

Looking good.

 

Nice work

 

Part 19.3 Drivers door hinge, done

The drivers door was a bit more complicated, I had to fabricate a larger piece for the jamb of the door and I had to build a patch piece for the skin area around the hinge because of all the bad welds that were previously done. Not a big deal, just more work and time.

I started by cutting out the ugly jamb part, then took some measurements where the hinge needed to be located, then I made the piece for the U channel where the hinge bolts on and welded it in. Next, I made the jamb piece with the lip for the door skin to fold over. As with the other door, I drilled about twice as many holes for spot welds onto the U channel. Then welded it in.

I made a posterboard template for the skin patch piece and hammered the little reveal that goes around the hinge. Trimmed it up and welded it into place. Then hammer and dolly work through the access hole I cut into the inner till I was satisfied with it. Last, I rewelded the piece I cut out for access.

I will chuck some paint on it and get it mounted this weekend

Next up will be some pictures of the door latch mechanism rebuild.

Here's some door hinge repair pictures.

Thanks for following along.

 

Hey Flow dude

What the heck are those square tube blue alum gizmo's anyway, some type of clamp ?

Really enjoying your truck build with great pics & copy to explain each step along the way

Very nice work on both !!

DND

 

Thanks! @D.N.D.

The blue thingys are butt weld clamps.
They work really well, a little bar slides in below and they
also have a couple thumb screws to compensate for different
thickness's of metal.
Here is another picture of them in action.

 

I need a set of those clamps. Did you get them in Canada ?

 

Harbor Freight use to sell these, I don't know if they still do.

 

Ya except the shipping twenty miles across the boarder it worth more than the clamps.

 

When we lived in Manitoba in 1970 p/u had to be licensed as commercial vehicles so you had to put your name on the doors. My Dads said Jack Simmons and Son then when my brother was born he added 's.
I was watching your videos and when you backed out of your garage I though. Hey those garbage cans look familiar. I'm from Calgary as well. Good to see the post neighbour.

 

@dumprat I got them from Princess auto, forget how much, but cheap when on sale.

@54monarch Thanks!, That explains the name on the door. Hope to see you on the road sometime.

 

Cool. Thanks!

 

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