My 30 Coupe build slowed down this week when I was informed by Mike's A Fordable parts that the inner bottom door frame patch is out of stock and will probably not be produced any more. They were contacted by the supplier that the company sold, and the new owners broke the dies and they don't plan to have new ones made. What do you guys do in this case? Thanks,
Unfortunately rust never rest and if you can find a nice donor door that is you best option. Otherwise finding a door to cut up. I have a rustfree one but shipping??
Looks like a straight piece with just a few bends in it, perhaps a bit more shape at the ends? Hard to tell as most of it is missing, but I'm guessing it shouldn't be too hard to make by hand.
Find a local sheet metal shop that builds AC ducts and see if they can break one up 4U. Some one with a box and pan break should be able to produce one. Happiness Is A Cold LZ
Looks like you have another door you could copy the bend pattern off of, I'd just make a new bottom for it. I'd trim away the overlap of the old door skin while trying to leave as much of that skin intact so you can see where the new bottom needs to line up. Then I'd bend up the steel. I don't have a brake, but I've got a couple pieces of angle iron and some clamps, those bends won't be hard to form. Once that was in place permanently, then I'd do the bottom of the door skin. I don't think there's any shapes there that would require a stamped panel, although I could be wrong.
Top bends are easy cause it’s just straight stuff. The bottom edge is tough cause it has a curve the entire length of the door. I’d probably bend up the straight stuff on a conventional brake, then use a tipping die to bend the curved flange over. Lotsa tools and experience needed if you can’t find a good original.
When I need to make something I'm unsure of I start with posterboard, scissors, and tape. Once I have my poster board pattern just start tracing to some 18ga sheet metal.
Welcome to my world! You Ford guys have been so spoiled over the years, with easy to get parts, now you are about to find out what the rest of is have been doing for years. Its called "fabrication", welcome to the party. When you can't buy the part you need, you learn how to make it. Like Ras stated, get some poster board (I cut up 12 & 24 pack beverage boxing), a pair of scissors, and some tape and have at it. If you can't make the pattern in one piece, make it in 2 or 3 pieces and weld them together. Pattern making, and then forming the metal into that pattern takes time to get the hang of. Its sort of like welding, few are experts on the 1st try, but practice improves things. Have fun.
Get some poster board. Make a pattern. If you can make it in poster board you can make it in steel. Figure out your bend sequences. but any decent metal shop should be able to hook ya up.
There is only 1" of curve over the length of the door, so a shrinker should be easily able to form the shape needed to match new metal to the outside lower door skin repair panels. They are still available, as far as I know. The rest is just simple bending. If you are not comfortable tackling this, farm it out, It will still be much cheaper than sourcing decent replacement doors.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/30-31-model-a-drivers-door.1299988/ Here’s an ad with a pic of the needed shape. Hard to see the curve, but it’s there.
I didn't know such a part existed so I had a sheet metal shop bend me a straight piece and I pie cut it a few times to get the curve.
When I was doing all the rust repair on my '39 Chev coupe I could get some parts, but not everything. I also am a cheapskate, and didn't want to pay high prices for ill fitting parts. So I made up cardboard patterns of various lower door patch panels, and checked angles on what was left of existing doors and wrote those down also. Once I had everything I could think of do***ented, I headed to the sheet metal yard and bought a 4'x8' sheet of 20 ga. steel and had them shear it in half. Then I took the half sheet and all my notes and patterns to a small one man sheet metal shop and asked him if he could bend the pieces up in his brake. I also told him to take whatever leftover part of the 4'x4' sheet wasn't used, and cut as many 2", 3" strips 4' wide until it was all cut up. I was going to leave, but he told me to hang on, and he'd do it while I waited! In less than 10 minutes I had inner and outer rockers, lower inner and outer door patch panels, some pieces to build my inner trunk drop, and some spare strips! Total was $10, and he said he felt bad charging me anything at all, but said his wife would scold him for using his equipment for free!
Shipping is a killer on big items. It is almost worth taking a trip to get one and have fun while on the trip. Thanks Jose
In your picture it looks like you have a door with enough material to copy from. I would use a hammer form to bend the curved lower lip.
You could also make a template of it and check out some other doors to see if you can find a section that will match. Kind of like cutting out sections of roof to fill in tops.
One of the guys here who lives in one of the Nordic countries hand built the entire back half of a A coupe by hand by making small sections then welding it on to another small section that he hand built.If you want it bad enough you can do it.What I would do is look at more modern cars, say Mustang, Dart, Camaro,and look at door bottoms until you find curves that look like you can work with them.Buy a door with a ugly outer skin,and cut it up for the sections you want.Fit to straight sheet metal,and bend as needed.If you can weld.....you can do it.
Sounds like the bottom return has a curve in it, so I agree with others that I'd use a hammer form to make that first (you only need a hammer, a couple pieces of heavy plywood and a couple big C clamps), then I'd do the other bends, I think it'd be easier to start with the hammer form but it could probably be done the other way.
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