body and interior Better to buy new doors?

[FrictionTape]

Or do I get this fixed? The underside of the driver is shot, and the passenger has outer rust with a little on the underside. As always, thanks for the feedback.

[Stevenc22]

My doors were in better condition than yours so i cleaned them up, applied rust stop and POR and sent them to the body shop. A year later the paint started to bubble. I reapplied rust stop sent them back to the body shop and a year after that the paint started to bubble. Bottom line either cut away all that rust (Which is near impossible on a pinch seam) or get new doors.

[FrictionTape]

It looked like a difficult repair....better start looking for new doors.

It looked like a difficult repair....better start looking for new doors.

[SydneyTii]

Bought a door recently $800 AUD, maybe cheaper stateside, not worth the labour fixing old ones unless you can do it yourself.

[Simeon]

You can buy a patch panel plus part door skin to fix that. You then need to factor in labour to fix properly. You might find that your old doors fit better than new BMW replacement doors.

[Hans]

I'd be looking for some good used doors.

[TobyB]

Doing it yourself?

How much are doors?

 

I would look for a new driver's and try fixing the passenger, if I was doing it.

 

Both CAN be fixed, but fixing the driver's side would take some fabrication skills,

whereas the passenger side might just be a repair.

 

3m Rust Fighter 1, again, 15 years later, has STILL kept the bottoms of Jenn's doors

clean, and they weren't perfect when I put them back together...

 

t

[Mike Self]

The problem with your driver's door is that the inner door frame is missing the flange that the outer door skin is crimped to.  So even if you replaced the outer skin with a patch panel, you'd have to fabricate the flange for the skin to have the proper rigidity/strength.  So I'd go for a replacement driver's door.

 

On the passenger side, that one small rust hole in the door frame can be fixed--and probably for less $$ than a new door.  You can keep the crimped-over seam (where the skin meets the frame) from rusting further by treating that seam from down inside the door with anti-rust primer/paint, POR 15 etc after cleaning out all the loose rust and crud.  

 

Best solution is to find a couple of used doors from a dry climate that have only surface rust.  Unless quality control has improved in the past few years, folks have reported fitment problems with  replacement doors--even from BMW.

 

cheers

mike

[Russell74Fjord]

My body shop suggested new doors, since their time to fix up mine would be about the same. He claims they are now made with galvanized metal, but I have yet to find any confirmation of that.

 

So about the same $$$ out the door, having new is nice, but I still worry about the "usual" rust spots, and may go in there and do some seam sealing.

[FrictionTape]

So I guess the hunt starts for new (to me) doors.

[rdeeble]

i have two good doors from a 68 in Seattle for sale if anyone is still interested.

[NYNick]

Run Forest Run!!! This guy is in CT too!

 

[adawil2002]

I'd go with new doors, or some SoCal used, may want to try 2002AD, I've never dealt with them, though that's where I'd start if I was looking.