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Posted by: jeffdon May 21 2010, 11:48 AM

So I am down to prepping the doors for paint.

I bought a pair of straight late style doors a while back, as I had to replace the passenger side door. They are very straight, with just a little tiny bit of rust. Bothw er cut for speakers by some idiot. Drivers door has some extra holes for a larger mirror mount, which should be easy to fill. I cut some inside metal from my old Pass. door and welded into the speaker hole. My plan was to keep using the early drivers door, as it was straight.

Won't go into details, but i put a big dent in the upper part of the drivers door via some real stupidity. Figured no big deal, i have fixed worse. Pulled the seal and am seeing some nasty rust spots due to some dipshit siliconing the seal in. Sorry for poor pics. Below are two out of four rust spots on my early door, and the newer door. Which would you use? Save the old door and have mismatched doors? Or go with the straighter late door, weld in donor parts from my old one to close the hole, and have them match?

Posted by: SirAndy May 21 2010, 11:58 AM

Late doors are HEAVY ...

Plus, if you have a early top, the late door window won't seal correctly against the top.

Andy

Posted by: jeffdon May 21 2010, 12:09 PM

Hey Andy, greetings to a fellow Oaklander.

Yeah, no kidding. Shockingly so. Crap, Maybe i should have fixed the orig. P-door anyhow. Wonder how much of an issue i will have with the pass. side seals. I have an extra roof at my parents house, how can i ID what year its from?

Anyone want to buy a late drivers side door all ready for a speaker?

Posted by: McMark May 21 2010, 12:32 PM

If you're building a street car, the weight is irrelevant.

Posted by: jeffdon May 21 2010, 12:38 PM

I had sorta been thinking that. Plus I suppose that there are some safety advantages. Leaning towards using the newer door.

Posted by: GeorgeRud May 21 2010, 01:58 PM

Go for the safety! There are a lot of idiots out there, and they have learned how to use their opposable thumbs to text while driving!

Posted by: Tom_T May 21 2010, 04:03 PM

Plus it's less than 100 lbs. for both late doors - including the late window regulators - which by the way will cause issues if the top/side seals are different (i.e.: you can't transplant early window gear into late doors & visa versa).

IMHO - I'd get some rust free doors appropriate to your 914's MY, & stay away from fixing rust on doors if you can avoid it.

I'm facing that same issue on my resto, & I have the "Light Late" doors on my early-73 2.0, since they put the late style doors without the side-impact beams in them, but with later windows/regulators on it when built in 8/72.

Posted by: jeffdon May 21 2010, 04:37 PM

Can I update the roof seals to the later type? Hell, can i ever GET the seals?

Posted by: SirAndy May 21 2010, 04:42 PM

The tops are different ...

Andy

Posted by: jeffdon May 22 2010, 09:19 PM

So i had the idea to retrofit my early window and hardware into one of my late doors. Anyone see issues with this?

Posted by: jeffdon May 23 2010, 11:34 AM

Shameless bump.

Can early style windows and regs be fitted to the late door?

How can I ID late vs early tops?

Posted by: SirAndy May 23 2010, 11:56 AM

Sure. All you need is lots of time and money ...

The the question is WHY? The late style window mechanism is far superior to the early style. If anything, you'd want to put late style regulators into an early door ...


As far as the tops, there's a thread here somewhere outlining all the differences with lots of pictures etc.

Andy

Posted by: jeffdon May 23 2010, 12:07 PM

Why? So I can use my existing top.

Posted by: SirAndy May 23 2010, 12:10 PM

It'll be much easier (and cheaper) to use the late doors and get a late top to match ...

Andy

Posted by: jeffdon May 23 2010, 12:14 PM

Found the top ID thread....get this, my top is actually a late top, so I guess that solves the "which door to use" question.

Sooooooo, back to my question about cutting inside metal out of my early door to replace the metal that someone cut out for speakers. not going to see it. Hate to thrash the early door if it could be of use to someone.

Posted by: Drums66 May 23 2010, 01:08 PM

Fix existing door if.........it's doable?

Posted by: jeffdon May 23 2010, 03:08 PM

GACK! Late door has worse rust than i thought. Fixable i guess, but damn.

So its been established that late doors and early tops don't seal well, how about early windows/doors and late tops? I don't recall having a leak issue.