• Welcome to ClassicBroncos! - You are currently viewing the forums as a GUEST. To take advantage of all the site features, please take a moment to register. It's fast, simple and absolutely free. So please join our community today!
    If you have problems registering or can't log into your account, please contact Admin.

Repairing instead of replacing door posts?

admin

Administrator
Just your friendly, neighborhood webmaster...
Joined
Jan 1, 2001
Messages
38,753
Loc.
Phoenix, AZ
Has anyone had success repairing rusty door posts instead of completely replacing them? All 4 of my posts have areas that are rusted through. In addition to it just being damn expensive (almost $500 just for the 4 posts) I'm concerned about getting everything else lined up again after replacement. If possible I'd rather leave them in place.

On 3 of my posts the rusted out area is just the "bubble" that the fender bolt threads into. I'm wondering if there's a way to cut out just those areas and weld in patch panels. The problem is I've never seen patch panels for this area, just whole posts.

So has anyone repaired these? Or am I just being a tight wad and I should just suck it up and replace them? ;D
 

2badrotties

Just a Bronco guy !
Joined
Sep 10, 2002
Messages
6,854
Loc.
Niskayuna N.Y.
You can repair anything especially if it is basically a trail truck and not something you are trying to show. Problem with the door and striker post is they rust on the bottoms under the rocker so you really don't know how solid it is under there. I'm guessing out there they would still be pretty solid. There are not patch panels for that section of the posts but cutting out and patching shouldn't be too big a deal. When your posts are rusted on the inside you pretty much find out as soon as you take the doors off... the little plates that the hinge bolts to fall down inside. Tap around on those posts and if they seem pretty solid , patch away ! :)
 

Muddy1966Bronco

Full Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2004
Messages
342
Loc.
Central PA
And I swore to myself I'd never let these pictures be seen... :-X

Anyway, I did a real redneck patching of mine and it seems to be holding up just fine so far. This is definately not the patch for a any type of show truck, but would work fine on a trail or lower class rig. Actually, I fixed it this way because the plan is to have a soft top and inserts and sell the hard doors.

I welded a thick peice of metal onto the side of the bronco to distribute weight and pressure, and then welded little triangles out from the scrap of door post that remained for support. As for the little ledge the fender bolts on to, I only have the top bolt on the drivers side and the top two on the passenger side. When running the round stock for the cut rockers, I ran it out the front fenders and rivited the bottom of the fenders fast. The fenders on mine are just fine. Now that the thing is together, you can't even tell most of the rigging I did to get those doors to work. It makes for a good 20, even 10 footer! :)

Yes, I am an eternal cheapie...it runs in my family.

Before you laugh, this is a north east bronco that was bought from a junkyard..."rust free" is an unknown phrase around here. Here's the best before and after I could find (fixed area is lower portion of 2nd picture)...

bronco_bad_doorpost2.jpg


bronco_doorpost_fix.jpg


I guess this probably won't help you at all, but I at least wanted to show probably a worst case scenario of what can be fixed. If you're good with a welder, or have a buddy and a case of beer as a bribe, you can fix that post. :cool:
 

trailpsycho

Bronco Guru
Joined
Dec 11, 2003
Messages
4,856
John and Andy-

I just finished doing this a couple of weeks ago. I have quite a few pics of the process, but not enough to do a serious tech article. Basically, the bottom 6-7 inches of my front door posts on both driver and passneger sides were shot, this had spread onto the kick panel overlap and onto the inner rocker. Keep in mind this was very isolated to this one overlapping area, which resulted from floor pan overlays placed on the angled part of the floor pan as it transitions from foot bed to firewall. The holes that were underneath allowed moisture into and underneath this area...it evaporated along the tunnel ( no rust problems there and was able to condense and sit on the kick panel. Over time, the kick panel corroded and allowed the moisture to seep down around the rocker and the door post, hence the isolated problem.

What I did was cut the door post about 8-9 inches up, just below the hinge plate retainer and removed the outer section of the door post, then about 1.5 inches below cut that section out. I also cut the kick panel from about the circle shaped hole for the vents to about where the back edge of the floor support meets the kick panel. I used 16 guage sheet to reproduce the kick panel and rocker sections, then spot and seam welded them, reattached them to the floor support (all after the floorboards were removed). Then I made replacement door post pieces, which was quite hard (first timer). I used c-clamps, 1/2 plate, 1/8 inch plate and body hammers to bend shape and manipulate these pieces (A vise, brake or other steel fab equipment would have made it alot easier.) to make pretty reasonable replicas of the door post halves. It actually turned out pretty nice and all the steel is new. I have alot of pics of this process and will have even more of other updates after I get back from having my frame dipped that I can post next week. Its do-able, however. It took me alot of time to do it this way. I could just have easily replaced the door post and inner rocker in less time. It was cheaper and I learned alot this way. Time will tell how well she will hold up. So far, all my friends have said that it turned out really nice and they will usually give me a hard time if they can...I even got a "good job, John, good for you" from one or two. Hopefully, the line-X will buy me a little extra protection. Good luck with whatever you decide John. The toughest part was trying to weld the 16 guage pieces I made and the older 20 guage original pieces...although some of the original steel is 16 guage. I had more than a couple of blow-throughs, but it all turned out OK. Again, take your time, try it with some sheet, if it doesnt turn out OK, buy the replacement pieces, you will only be out time, and $10 in 16 guage sheet rather than the $500 for new panels.
 

1975stroppebaja

Bronco Guru
Joined
Apr 18, 2003
Messages
1,405
I was in the exact same boat as you and I chose to repair mine. You can see pics in the links below. When I bought my rear quarter panel kit it came with new striker posts. I didn't need those and I noticed that I could cut a piece out of the pass striker that matched up nicely with the driver's door post. So I cut a patch out of there and welded it in.

Also the backsides of my doorposts were shot. Literally, they were gone, no sign of them. Turns out JBG will sell you the backsides only for much less so I got them and welded them in. I have pics of those too if anyone's interested.

Good luck!

http://www.frontiernet.net/~jray77/Temp/doorpostpatch-03.jpg
http://www.frontiernet.net/~jray77/Temp/doorpostpatch-09.jpg
http://www.frontiernet.net/~jray77/Temp/doorpostpatch-17.jpg
 

broncow72

Village Idiot
Joined
Jun 5, 2005
Messages
2,174
Loc.
Spring,TX.
Great!!! I was gonna do a patch on mine but thought if anyone saw it they would think I was retarded. So I went ahead and replaced both hinge posts and now have to deal with fixing how I did it wrong.
PATCH IT!
 

Tgure

Bronco Guru
Joined
Jan 2, 2004
Messages
1,152
Loc.
Phoenix
admin said:
Has anyone had success repairing rusty door posts instead of completely replacing them? All 4 of my posts have areas that are rusted through. In addition to it just being damn expensive (almost $500 just for the 4 posts) I'm concerned about getting everything else lined up again after replacement. If possible I'd rather leave them in place.

On 3 of my posts the rusted out area is just the "bubble" that the fender bolt threads into. I'm wondering if there's a way to cut out just those areas and weld in patch panels. The problem is I've never seen patch panels for this area, just whole posts.

So has anyone repaired these? Or am I just being a tight wad and I should just suck it up and replace them? ;D

You can patch it from what I saw. I may even have something I can cut out for you. Send me some pics I cannot remember exactly where it all was when I saw it last weekend. aftermathinc@gmail.com
;D
 
Top