Door Stay Mountpoint Reenforcement Options

[jalvani]

The door stays were shot on my 911, so I pulled them out to replace them over the winter. Long story short, despite putting the Rennline reenforcement kit on this winter, the metal on the drivers side in the door to which the door stay mounts is pretty fatigued and bent out of position. Going into the body shop shortly (Haury’s in Seattle if you’re local and familiar), for those of you who have had a similar experience, what options should I expect? Any chance to save the door?

[fintstone]

A good body shop can repair/weld that up. The reinforcement is to save having to weld/paint them.

[jalvani]

That was my hope. Makes me feel a bit better. The guy who I’d spoken to was talking about sourcing a new door, but he doesn’t work on old 911s, and the guy who does wasn’t in the shop at the time to help make a plan.

Thanks for putting my mind at ease.

[Brandonmel85]

Do you think you would be able to weld the reinforcement kit to the door itself?

[Dpmulvan]

Originally Posted by Brandonmel85

Do you think you would be able to weld the reinforcement kit to the door itself?

There’s nothing to weld on yours it’s toast. You’ll have to have someone weld in new metal or get a new door.

[PeteKz]

Jeez, three door stay repair threads going today--we oughta combine them...

[jalvani]

Originally Posted by Brandonmel85

Do you think you would be able to weld the reinforcement kit to the door itself?

That’s what the shop wound up doing. I took it into Haury’s in Seattle last fall and they absolutely knocked this repair out of the park. It was pretty delicate but they killed it. I have great pictures too, will try to post this weekend.

[jalvani]

Finally getting around to posting the gory details. In this case, Haury's had a pretty narrow margin for error; at the marked "bend line" there's about .5" of space between the door structure and the outer "skin" of the door. This repair required very careful bending at the line or a little above to prevent damaging the door skin.

You can see the extent of the damage on the driver's side. A couple rounds removing damaged metal, of adding metal to the damaged areas, then smoothing left a good base to use bonding agent to secure the kit to the original door structure. Then it was cleaned up and put back together. I've been driving with this door for 9 months or so, now, and I was thrilled when I picked the car up and I'm thrilled now. Just amazing work.

The passengers side opens and closes beautifully as well.

[jalvani]

[OsoMoore]

About how much did the work cost? This looks far beyond my skills with a harbour freight welder.

[jalvani]

@OsoMoore They quoted $3500 but it came in at about $2200 IIRC. When I asked Zac about it, he said "well, bottom line, we had everything break in our favor on this one".

[5495bb]

These pictures of failed door stays make me cringe. Does any one have a way to prevent the metal fatigue and failure? Would installing our hosts kit be effective and practical on an undamaged door? My '87 is fine but I would like to be pro-active to prevent this kind of damage. I do keep the mechanism lubricated and am very careful when opening the door all the way. Thanks.

[dtwa]

I think the problem here is not the doors but the replacement door stays. They require too much force to move, especially in cold climates. I trashed what was a perfectly good door on my 85 by replacing the worn out door stay with a new one. So I added the Rennline reinforcement kit and trashed that. Here is a pic of the small outer plate I just removed.




The stays are just too stiff, and require too much force to operate, especially in cold temps. Just my $0.02.

—Dave


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jalvani]

@Dave that might be the case for some folks' replacement stays. In my case the stays were stock. The mount points, however, in the 911 G-models and before is a known weak-point well documented across forums and in a few books.

@5495bb, I would definitely add the Rennline kit (haven't looked to see if Pelican has a similar kit or simply resells the Rennline). But be aware that it's not a silver bullet. Still need to keep your eye on it.

[5495bb]

@jalvani, thanks for the advise. I may pick up a kit to see if I can install it simply. The metal around the stays look like it would benefit from even the slightest reinforcement so it may be as simple as adding a plate on the outside of the door.
By the way that's a beautiful repair the body shop did on your door. It must be comforting to know that you have such a good shop in your area.
Frank

[Funracer]

Amazing metal work. Great pics too.

Thanks for showing us the Tommy John surgery.

That is money well spent.