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TR2/3/3A body work on doors

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sp53

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Well the weather is cooling down in my shop to 65 and I started back on the bodywok after using the heat of summer to bend vinyl for the seats and interior. I have been priming and filling and priming the doors and fenders and I have a question about were the bottom and side meet on the doors. They come together like the ridge of a roof on a house and create a miter line.

Plus the door handle area is low around the handle and I see that on a lot of restored tr3s. Can I leave these areas and the eye will accept them as normal or does the door have to have a flat plane and the handle perfectly level. My pictures are the not the best, but I hope I got the basic difficulty and question.

steve
 
The door handles take a beating, so the depression is from years of slamming the door closed with the handle. It should be flat, with the door handle pintle raised from the flat surround. That said, the handle does break up the view you can see with the eye, so a slight depression would be missed in most lighting situations. You should be able to simply push the pintle outward from the inside, and thereby raise the area surrounding the pintle into the plane with the rest of the door. Then you can continue with the sanding. That is sort of the idea behind the modern "paintless dent repair". You work gently from the back side to raise the dent.

As for the edge along the front of the door...I think it's time to mount the door to the front wing to make sure they align. In the pic it appears a bit too tapered at the front edge. If the wing and door align correctly, they should both be almost straight where they meet. In other words a straight edge held against the gap between the wing and door should touch both panels and the gap has a small radius on each panel...like about 1/16". No taper leading to the front or rear gap. Just a mostly round radius into the gap.

The door is looking great!
 
Yeah, I didn't pay too much attention personally to getting the area flat behind the handle. I did work it a little bit but I figured with regular use, that area would get stressed again anyway over the years...I don't notice it now that the car is finished.

Cheers
Tush
 
Thanks for your note guys. I am with you on the door handle Tush and I did push it out gently a few times John. The picture of the door bevel is more dramatic than it is, my camera is old, but yes it is there. However, all four door corners have the same tapering on the corners. The doors are/were in very good condition to begin with. It almost looks like when the skin was installed the frames force a small rise as all the sides meet on the frame. I know that sounds like hopeful thinking in my favor, plus I do not have much experience in this area, and again I trust your skill sets over mine guys. It is not like someone opened the door going backward and sprung the door on the curb; it is more like a crown occurred when fastening the door skin originally to the frame with not much concern for a flat plane. I am talking myself into this one. But, anyways I will mount the door as John suggests and see what that looks like and perhaps get a better camera.
steve
 
I think you are right on the point about the "crown" around where the skin attaches to the frame. Agree that you should mount the door. The door edge, front and rear, should be the same contour as the body panel it comes up next to but the door does "round off" a little, particularly at the front bottom edge. If you tried to fill and level the "ledge" you would have the door standing proud of the fender at the bottom. I only comment because as I was walking past mine a few minutes ago, I looked at it and remembered your post, so I looked closely out of curiosity. It's a "slight bevel" just like the sanding marks on your photo appear. This is probably just another way of saying what has already been said, but sometimes comfort comes in numbers. There was no body work done on my doors except to prime and block sand. As for the door handle area...I ignored it.
 
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