T coupe Door skin replacement: Who's had good luck??

Any one had any good luck with reskining a T coupe door? Who's door skins have you used. I bought some cowl panels from Howell's and they sucked!

I've found that Lang's and Howell's has them but is there anyone else??

Show pics if you have them also of the replacement!!

 

I got a buddy who runs a model A parts store and he tells me they mostly all come from the same supplier. The beads never seem to match up.
I dont understand why they keep making them and selling them if they are junk.
I paid a hot rod shop to make me some a couple of years back and they were about as close as I could find, but it hurt the pocket book.

Seems the trick is to find perfect doors and pay the price, that is what Id do next time.
Buddy of mine paid $2000 for 2 doors just so he did not have to worry about that kind of stuff. Real slick doors and no other costs to worry about, even got all the good hinges, latches and sill trim pieces etc so it probably was'nt that bad.

 

yea I bid $600 on a pair a couple years ago, but they ended at $1200 they were that nice. Good doors are outta my reach right now, so I'm going to make mine work even if I have to work the beads over on a pair of skins?

 

Going by your other work I am sure you could make a nice repair.
Making your own skins wor patch panel could work if you can get a handle on forming the bead.
Good luck and post it if it works out.

 

Thanks Fifty! but I'd rather buy the skins and make them work.

 

have you checked with www.modeltheaven.com they sell some sheet metal last i knew.

 

Try, http://www.modelthaven.com/

 

Thanks guys but they don't carry them, I've checked with them before.


Anyone else?

 

Come on! surely someone has done this!!!!

 

I used the short 9" lower skin from Howell's on my 26 the outside was good but the inner was way off.

 

any pics of how it turned out?

 

No pics ,i sold the body a few years back. The inner fit ok but they did not come out to the corners and the bead and step at the large hole was flat making it hard to weld.

 

yea I think I'm going to use my bead roller to get that inner step, I don't know why the just make them "similar" to the original one, when they could go one step further and make them identical???

 

surely someone has done this??????

 

i have 3 model-t's, the best one has had the lower part of the doors replaced and they did a nice job, i'm pretty sure he just used a beadroller, the other two t's need the doors repaired and i'm going to be doing it, they look pretty simple.

 

Yeah, original doors are quite pricey! Has anyone tried Mac's for T sheet metal?

 

OK!
Just for you, I went out and slapped a door patch on my 28 closed cab, just to see if it fit well.
Actually I was kinda curious myself on the fit of these Howell patches.
Well, the outside panels fit pretty good. The rolled edge is just a little different but will probably be easy to match with a little hammer and dolly work.
The inside patch is a another story, the fit is ....... crap! But I'll deal with that later.

I have a full door skin for the other door and hope to have it on in the next day or two. From just a trial fit it looks like it is going to fit just as good as the patch. I will keep you updated.

 

I must be missing something, nobody makes a good skin? Is this a marketable item? Somebody have a sample of what is needed? I can make the tooling to make these things. There must be something complicated i don't see. Explain please, thanks oj

 

Here's the door skin from Howell's.
It looks like it'll fit nice and the contour is pretty damn close.
Should be very easy to install and blend to the upper window opening.

 

A whole lower skin would probably be easier to match in than trying to match the bead edge, since the repro one seems wider and flatter, I just can not see why they make them like that, must be just as easy to make them right as it is to make them wrong, maybe they hold stock in a Bondo company!!!

 

I dont own a "T" but it seems to me that all these cars as they were "mass produced" did have the panels made and fit by hand.
That being the case, wouldnt the panels be a trick to find any two that are exactly the same in they're measurements? I would think that you would have a certain amount of fitting anyway. Just saying.

 

I used Mac's 9" lower outside skins. Worked alright.

 

Round two, left door skin......
It looks better than it really is. Big warp in middle of door and the usual rust at bottom.



I measured to the bottom of both corners and noted those measurements at the bottom corner of the door.
Next I took a grinder to the edge of the original door to separate the original skin and to allow the new skin to fit over the old skin.


skin fits over old door now.


I hate lap welds so I marked the new skin (top line) and cut the flange off.


I used a long piece of 3/16 strap steel to clamp to the top of the skin after I cut off the flange. If you can cut a nice straight line, you're a bad ass! I use the strap as a guide and with a grinder, skimp across the top to straighten out the cut.



After I cut the new skin I slide it over the old door and scribe a line as I did the new skin then cut the old door skin off.
I use the same strap of steel to straighten my cut on the original door just like I did above.
Make your cuts just a hair above the mark so you can grind the line straight. I didn't use the panel clamps on this skin, I don't really care for them that much.



The two shots below show how close the door edge bead lines up.
Not prefect but pretty damn close!



And all that's left is the slow boring spot weld and grind...........joy!
Oh yeah...and the dreaded patching of the back of both doors.....

 

I bought full door skins for my 29 CCPU from Bert's Model A in Denver (closed on Mondays 800/321-1931). No problems. Also got the 6-1/2" stretched corner panels from Howell's thru Bert's.

 

Wow found their website in the google search, but there's no site up! I might have to try and call them tomorrow! thanks Denis!

 

Those 26-27 T Coupe & Tudor and 28-29 CLosed Cab Pickup doors have been gold since forever.
These patches don't look too bad at all considering that there may have been two or three companies making doors for these vehicles or two or three sets of dies made over the production run of 4 years for these doors alone.
Sometimes replacement panels for Fords don't fit because they don't your particular door, or body, quite right. Remember, you're dealing with the lowest-priced car in the market here.
I'm not making excuses for Howell's either. I've been a round and heard all the stories and seen some of their stuff. It's just that sometimes on some things Mr. Ford wasn't that damn picky about matching beads etc. You should check out the beadwork on some early turtle decks for 17-22 and 23-25 T roadsters. EEEEEYOW!

 

I'm not knockin Mr. Ford's doors... I just don't like the half-a** work Howell's does to reproduce some of their panels. With today's technology, you'd think they would take the time to make sure they fit, especially at $75 a pop!

 

I am with Chaddilac, it must take the same effort to make a bad panel it would to make a correct item. Everybody knows they dont fit so I dont understand why they dont just deal with the issue and make them correctly.

 

The thing I don't understand id one can get a repro door for an A, a Deuce and nearly every other old car, but one can't get a complete door for a T coupe.
Hec, I'd even take one in glass...
r

 

Pretty amazing!

Back in 1980 I used to design cars for Pininfarina in Italy. Everyday on my way to lunch, I would cut through the assembly line to the cafeteria. On my left was the line for Alfa Romeo Spiders and on the right Lancia Monte Carlos (called Scorpions in the U.S.). While walking to the cafeteria I saw the entire assembly process from floor pan to finished body in the raw. What amazed me was that every single Alfa had the same dent in the nose cone, along with a bunch of other dents around other parts of the body. There was one body inspector who went around with a yellow grease pencil circling all of the dents caused by bad dies. Another guy's job was leading all of those dents.

I guess it was cheaper for them to fix the dents in the assembly line rather than make new dies. I suspect that that since there is a steady market for T door skins, bad or good, that there is no financial reason for them to fix the dies.