Patrick Krejcik asks if anyone has crimped on a door panel on an Etype.
Never on an E-type; I only wish I had the problem of redoing an E. But a
panel is a panel. Eastwood sell (note British sell, rather than sells) a
crimping tool which is worth having for this job. One can buy caulking to
apply before crimping to seal the seam; I suggest a coat of epoxy primer
on the flange and the panel before crimping, then apply bead of caulk and
crimp while primer is still soft (within 24 hr) to avoid flaking. The
biggest problem, I suspect, will be making the panel fold over exactly as
much as the original, so the door gaps don't change. A hint here: your
panel will probably come with a nice 90 degree flange around the edge.
Start folding the panel over the door frame with a large flat body hammer,
tapping around the edge and folding the flange a few degrees at a time.
Do it evenly; if you fold too much in a single pass, you stretch the
flange, which is ungood because it will be hard to make the flange lay
flat when it is finished. When the hammer has worked the flange enough so
the Eastman tool can get a grip, then start using it again going around
and around a bit at a time until the panel is attached. Don't apply max
force to really squish the bead until you check the door gaps. If they
are too small, tap along the edge repeatedly and evenly with a large flat
body hammer, to persuade the skin to wrap a bit tighter, and get the gaps
about right before really clamping it down with the Eastwood tool. This
is not easy to do, but if the panel is only loosely crimped on, it should
be possible. If the gaps are too large, you folded the panel (or the
manufacturer made it) along the wrong line, but this is surprisingly easy
to fix. Take your Mig welder (you really need one), and run short
sections of bead (keeping panel as cool as possible) along the edge to
build it up. Move your torch quickly to make a small bead; penetration
should not be a big issue--almost anything will stick and the cooler you
keep it the less you will warp your panel and/or burn hell out of your
carefully applied primer and caulk). Then grind and file the bead to get
the gap to the desired width. The first time you do this, you will feel
like a black belt in body kludging, I guarantee.
Olin Kane suggests a clever way of attaching body panels to avoid welding
down the hard MIG bead.
It's an excellent idea, if you have access to the back of the panel. My
concern would be that you will need some filler (bondo) on the finish
surface of the panel, but the rosette welds do not completely seal the
junction of the panels. There is therefore a possibility that water may
come in from the back, dampen your bondo, and cause failure. Because you
need access to the back to use Olin's method, I would just add the
suggestion that the last step in the repair should be to seal carefully
the back of the joint with seam sealer to keep water out.
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