Projects Just picked up a 27 Roadster Body

I have definitely been neglecting to update the thread a bit. Should be better about that.

So I decided to buy a new outer skin for the passenger side, as the inner part was decent enough. Even though they were blasted, I stuck them in some citric acid for a while.



I welded some of the holes, and then got a little lazy and used some JB Weld. The metal was just so thin in some places that welding was giving me trouble. But it felt strong enough for me to feel okay not replacing any metal. I did need to rework the area where the latch mounts. Again, not pretty, but the latch fits nice.



I still need to drill the holes in the top and install some rivnuts for the lower mounts, but the fit looks and feels good. I’ll be sure to take good pictures during the re-skin process.

For the driver’s side, I found this door on Craigslist Bakersfield. The guy selling it was nice enough to ship it my way. The door is really nice, except for those huge holes someone took a torch to. The good news is the door came with a replacement piece, that is as nice (or even nicer) than the good door. I will test my welding skills at Frankensteining this door together and will document my likely failure.




The driver’s door is getting blasted and I’ll post some after blasting pics shortly.

 

The new driver’s door and the replacement piece have been blasted. They look real good. I don’t think I’m going to go for a straight cut off the top, as I dont want to mess with the hinge support and trying to line that up perfectly. I think I can cut around that and use the entire top of the replacement piece, which is in really good condition and should look at home next to the new door skin for the passenger side.







Passenger door skinning to be done soon....

 

I had a lot of trouble welding on my 27 doors. My welds look like yours. Couldn't get original locks to fit so installed locks out of a 60s Citroen 2CV van

Sent from my moto g(8) power using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Welded in some 4mm plate in the end. Slide it behind the original opening for the locks and drilled and tapped it to take the Deux Chevaux locks. Doesn't rely on the strength of the weld now. They just locate it. The plate would have to be pulled through the inner door skin. Possible of course, but if the crash was hard enough to do that I would have a world of other problems.

Will try and post pictures later.

Sent from my moto g(8) power using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Sounds like a clever solution. Looking forward to the pics.

 

So a I made a little progress to report. I got the door latch area of the passenger door finished, so it will be ready to skin soon. I had to order the 10-32 rivnuts, as I wanted to keep the same size mounting screws as stock. They use 10-32 machine screws if anyone was curious. I was.

I carefully drilled the holes for the lower mounts, understanding that the rivnuts would space the latch a little bit off the recessed flange.



Next I installed the rivnuts.



I then installed the latch to see where I needed to drill holes for the upper mounts. The upper mount screws thread into the latch mechanism itself, so the upper holes are just holes. They use the same size machine screw. When the latch is installed, the inner door structure gets a noticeable increase in stiffness.



I test fit the inner structure to the cowl to make sure it still opened and closed as it did before I started hacking and welding on it. Fit looks good.




Not sure I'll get to the door skinning for a while, as I'm heading out of town for the 4th. I do have the driver's door I decided not to use for sale in the classifieds, if anyone is interested.

 

Having built a T touring I LOVE the way you built your cowl. Very good thinking. It also looks like you have a late and early door based on that front corner

 

Thanks Tman. Much appreciated.

Tell me more about the details you noticed about the doors. I’ve been curious to trying to pin down a definitive year on this thing. I always thought both my doors were late doors due to the size of the four large holes on the inner structure. but I am far from an expert on these things.

 

Did you see the recent thread on this? I will dig it up

 

Here. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...iscussion-or-questions.1196532/#post-13622550

 

Brad,
You are going to metal finish the inside of the inner door aren't you?

 

I had seen that, and that’s what pointed me to think I had late doors. I had seen what some of the guys were talking about where the door meets the cowl, but I didn’t understand it enough to make sense of my doors.

 

That is my metal finishing