[Phillip]

I managed to get out of the house and down to the shed on Monday night for a little de-stress and relaxation in the form of assembling the offside crew door.

The inner skin of the original door was almost non-existent but from the scraps that I have, I worked out that they had used a cut down standard door inner skin. A new inner was made from a spare drivers door so to start the original outer skin of the standard door was removed by grinding the spot welds off around the seam (a "fun" job) and the hinge end lopped off.

A filling piece was bent up and welded into the corner where the wheel arch starts and another piece welded along its length to the same angle as the original to create a new edge where it hinges on the 'B' pillar.

The inside plates that hold the window curtain brackets were removed and the door was then stripped of rust and given a coat of killrust grey (because it was handy).

In doing this I noted that all the doors have never had a coat of paint on the inside and can only put this down to war time economy.

The brackets for the window curtains are not in the same place as the normal doors and so new holes were drilled and and the inner threaded plates welded into place along with a stengthening plate that runs down the full length of hinge side.

The original outer skin is all one piece with no welds so I had a new outer skin made by a local (and tolerant) sheet metal fabricator, using the original for a pattern.

The slot for the door handle was cut out with the angle grinder and a dremel (what did I ever do without this wonderful little tool) and an original piece of bar welded into place to hold the tinplate cover.

The new/ old inner skin was fitted to the new outer skin and the edges folded over using the tried and trusted method of a flat surface and a heavy hammer to lock the two halves together.

Hinges were screwed into the new door and the new 'B' pillar has been tacked into place pending completion of the other side.