Door skins vs. NOS vs. new doors

[srh3trinity]

Both of my doors have some linear dents in them near the body line (74 Firebird). One has two and the other has one. All of these dents are 6-10 inches. Should I buy skins, try to source some doors in better condition or break down and buy new ones? Anybody have any idea how much work (in shop hours) it would take to re-skin some doors?

[Josue]

I'm not sure how much these "older" doors would be, but all the new vehicles I skin at work are anywhere from 5-7hrs worth of labor.

Do you have any pics of the damage? I'm sure everyone could give you a better opinion if we could see what you're working with.

[srh3trinity]

I will try to post some up. I don't know much about body work, but it seems like there would be a lot of work in fixing these linear dents. Sometimes I think this car was involved in a car chase through an alley. Very little rust in it, but just about every panel needs work.

[elitecustombody]

if there is no rust, I'd try to straighten the doors you have, work out the stratched metal ,use shrinking disc, if you can't get them straight, pop new skins on, it's very easy and with right tools and experience it's about 2 hour job per door

[DarkoNova]

Why couldn't you just pound the dents out from the inside? Roll the window up and pound them out, then do some metalwork to get it as close to perfect as you can, bondo it, done.

Granted, I have very limited bodywork experience, and I haven't seen the doors, but it sounds easier and cheaper than buying new doors or door skins.

[Josue]

Here's a few pics of the doors I'm working with on my dad's '69 Firebird restoration. They were really clean, original doors, just the outsides were dented up. We're trying to save money as much as we can though, and he doesn't need or want a 100 point, Barret-Jackson show car or anything where it needs to be LASER straight, so I'm going to repair these and save $200+. They'll look nice when I'm done, good enough for drive quality.

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/09/104_4938-1.jpg
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2010/09/104_4937-1.jpg

I've been a body man for 7-8 years though, so I have plenty of experience. Everyone else who's seen the shape of the doors looks at me like I'm crazy...lol "You're gonna FIX these!?"

[srh3trinity]

There is no rust in the doors and finding a nice set of doors locally has been unfruitful. I may see how far I get by trying to access this part of the door myself and see if I can get them a little closer to straight.

[srh3trinity]

I looked tonight. I am not sure how you could access the back side of the actual panel. I am going to have to get some better light, but there is no way I can see to access the rear part of the panel. I will still try to get some pics up. My wife keeps the camera in her purse and I keep forgetting to ask her to leave it for me.

[Josue]

Yea, you'll need to get creative in your access points. lol Use whatever you can think of to get to the dents, anything long, like prybars or something.

You still might not be able to get ALL of them out though, in which case, it gets a little more advanced. You'll need a stud gun, it welds little tabs onto the low spots of the panel, and you attatch a small slide hammer and pull the dents out that way. They can be a little pricey though, $200 for a cheap one, to $400+.

[srh3trinity]

It really isn't the access as much as it is the fact that there is some kind of brace on the inside of the door that runs along where the body line is on the other side of the door.

[Josue]

Ah...yea, the intrusion beam. Still though, a stud gun will be able to help out alot since it pulls the dents from the outside of the panel.

[Jim Nilsen]

2nd gen doors are a pain and I would put new skins on them or get different doors. He might not be building a show car but he still wants it to have it nice I would think? You can try to pull those dents out but the doors are so flat that you can see every wave in them.

[srh3trinity]

2nd gen doors are a pain and I would put new skins on them or get different doors. He might not be building a show car but he still wants it to have it nice I would think? You can try to pull those dents out but the doors are so flat that you can see every wave in them.

This is the way I am most likely to go. The Firebird has a really soft body line too and I think it would be difficult to work the dents and keep the line looking nice.