Rust Repair Part 27: Prepping Four Doors Takes Forever

I’ve come to the realization that unless a body panel is covered in epoxy primer and in good enough shape that you could start on body filler then the metalwork isn’t actually done. The XJ is still a long ways away from being ready for filler but asking myself this question when working on each panel has been a handy litmus test for me to tell when it’s actually “done” (ok maybe a better phrase would be good enough).

I started asking myself this because I’ve had to backtrack several times and touch up other panels that I thought were “done” and jumping around like that makes it hard to see the overall progress.

Right now I’m focused on working through each exterior body panel so I can try and get the entire exterior finished up. The driver side is pretty much done and while I still need to remake the rear inner wheel well I wanted to at least get the driver side siting in primer.

It took a few hours of sanding to get the driver side ready for primer.

Two coats of epoxy later.

No More Half Finished Panels

Each of the four doors had been started on but none of them were actually done and this was bugging me because I couldn’t cross them off my TODO list. Two of the doors had already been patched, one didn’t need any patches, and the last was still rusty and in desperate need of patching.

The rear driver door didn’t look like it’d take too much effort to finish up so I opted to start there.

I already replaced the bottom of the door awhile ago so all it really needed now was to be scuffed and primed.

Backside scuffed and primed.

Front side ready for primer.

Done.

Next up was the passenger rear door. This door hasn’t been patched but it’s also in great shape since it came from out west.

There was some minor signs of rust on the bottom inner edge but I opted to send it.

The mounting plates for the door hinges were pretty rusty so I temporarily removed them in order to sandblast them.

Lots of fun sanding by hand.

Backside all primed.

Here’s how those plates came out.

Frontside before.

Sanded.

Done.

With both rear doors done it was time to move to the front. The driver door was in pretty rough shape so I figured I’d jam out the last easy door (front passenger door) before diving into that mess.

(Primer is still wet)

Passenger front door done.

I forgot to take any before pictures of the driver door but it was pretty rough due to rust on the inside and was going to require some major patching.

My favorite technique for removing door skins has been to use a grinder and grind the edges off.

It lets you remove the skin without damaging the inner frame.

The bottom lip is kinda bad.

The inner crash bar had a lot of rust on it and I didn’t see any easy way to fix it up while inside the door so I ended up drilling out the spot welds to remove it.

Factory welds were then split apart via a die grinder to prep for blasting.

So much better.

The door frame was blasted too.

One final test fit of the crash bar before welding it up.

Inside’s all done.

Overall the bottom lip cleaned up decently with the exception of a single patch in the lower left corner.

Backside primed.

Tacking the new lower skin into position.

Welded up.

I made a bit of a mess out of the door skin lip on the backside because I started off using the wrong hammer when I should’ve been using a door skin hammer. I’m not too worried about it though.

A little over one month of work later and I had all four doors primed and ready for filler.

I forgot to mention but the door shims were sand blasted and primed too.