inner door jamb rust
 

Has anyone done the upper, inner door jamb rust repair on a SC ? I'm wondering what it takes to do this job correctly.

Thanks.

Bump

I'd say PM "Zeke". I believe he's worked on a lot of rust all over his car, including the doorjams.

-Scott

Thanks, I try that.

Still No luck so far....

You need a door jamb panel, sundry body tools, time, a place to do it, and then you will have to paint the quarter. The panel is spot welded under the door rubber, and at the inner flange of the quarter. to find the spot welds and not ruin the flange is one of experience. thats the best I can tell you, in the short form.

I replaced both door jams on my '73. The SC should be better (more rust resistant) because of the additional galvanizing of the body over my '73. The area that surprised me the most, though, was that it is an overlapping joint between the door jams and the quarter panel, and there was more rust in between the panels that caused a lot of work to rectify. It was a lot of work though, drilling out spot welds and fitting the new door jams in while maintaining alignment of the door to the quarter panel. And trying to make sure htat the area was properly cleaned and treated to make sure it didn't rot away again (wishful thinking).

Jim

I think damon nailed it. I'm not too hip on drilling spot welds anymore, though. If you can cut the jamb out on the fender side right next to the lip and then prepare the backside nice and flat with a grinder, it'S much easier. I used a punch to make holes to plug weld from the back (up inside the fender).

Yes your new part will end up the thickness of the metal eft behind, but if you do a good job of grinding, it won't be hardly noticable. On the interior side, I drilled the welds and yanked the sucker out.

If your doors look good gap wise and image wise, don't disturb them. Just disconnect the door stay/limiter thing and swing the door wide open carefully. The only bummer is that you have to reinsert the pin in the stay EVERY time you close the door. It's worth it to have the door as a referrence in aligning the part.

So I guess patching the hole with new sheet metal is not a good idea. The hole is about 3 inches wide by 2inches tall towards the top.
Can you buy a replacement panel somewhere?
And thanks for you help.

It depends how much is rusted, if the piece is small enough, sheet steel cut to fit with hand tools and formed may be all you need. If there is more of the curvature needed, a replacement door jamb can be purchased, and cut to fit. Usually if the top is gone, the bottom is not far behind where it joins the rocker. and in that case entire jamb replacement is in order. And then the hidden portion of the rocker is bad, and the spiral continues... You may have an isolated case up top, the undercoat was breached and a festering pocket of moisture ensued, the undercoat of that era is pretty rubbery and resilient, and your car is galvy, so you may just get by with the upper repair. Pictures would help. Zeke is right, drilling the welds at the 1/4 can leave a flappy panel, prone to outer distortion, because the right angle strength has been compromised,but after welding returns. Grinding away the dorr jamb remains from inside the 1/4 is difficult and time consuming also. Pick your poison.

Hey Damon, not necessarily. With the jamb out, you can grind a bunch of it from the front using a grinding wheel mounted backwards in your grinder. Kinda pulling it toward you after placing the lipt of the wheel on the back side of the lip.

You have all kinds of air grinders and such, get a mandrel and a stone. That's another way. Sure, it bounces around if you let it. But with your experience in controlling power tools, and some heavy gloves, that's the way to do it.

If I were using air of power tools for the first time, I wouldn't do it that way.But, like you and your fiberglass, I was in the fiberglass business in the mid '60's and have used power tools regularly for 40 years. I still have ten fingers and two eyes. ;)

PS, most severe injury I ever got doing bodywork, I was using a Vixen hand file on lead. That's another story.