1942 dodge ambulance resto

[jack neville]

The rear door sections have been sandblasted and refitted after I tapped out all the dents. The rearmost floor cross member was missing so I had a new one folded up and tacked it in place to the floor. After knocking out the dents on the lower right corner side it was a bit out of alignment and wouldn't fit up close to the new cross member. I tacked a couple of small pieces of angle iron to each to pull them together.

[jack neville]

Jake has two pair of rear doors so I fitted a couple to check the rear body for square. It all looks encouraging but will need bolting down to the chassis before we decide it is good enough.
This is the first time we have had a decent look at the doors and none of them are good enough to use. Either too much rust or too dented. they are pretty simple and are made of two similar halves that wrap around each other with the long hinge sandwiched in between. First to do was open one door up for patterns. The hinges can be sandblasted and re-used. The doors have cardboard inside as insulation and being 75 odd years old the cardboard is tinder dry and easily caught fire as I cut them open with the angle grinder. No doubt the rusty interior has something to do with the cardboard. We will fill the new doors with something else.

[jack neville]

I ordered some panel steel and had two folds put in each piece to cover the longest fold on each side. The rest I can do by hand.

[jack neville]

A bit of an update on the door progress. The left door two halves have been formed up and the two halves mate together well. The hinge needs to be sandblasted first to clean it up as it needs to be welded to the outer skin, then the inner skin overlaps and is welded in place. Relevant holes have been drilled and the window cut out. I removed the caged nut panels from the old door. They spent a night in my elec bath to clean them up and they have been welded in place.

[jack neville]

A couple of shots of the cardboard insulation.

[jack neville]

I got the first door sandblasted and gave it a good coat of red oxide primer before assembly. Something the original doors never received. The hinge was then welded on to the outer skin.

[jack neville]

to replace the cardboard insulation I intended to use a couple of sheets of housing Foilboard polystyrene insulation. Then I remembered I had some scraps of coolroom panelling that was 50mm thick. Merely peel the sheetmetal outer skin off it from each side and cut to fit. Perfect.