I started working on the doors for my 68 Sport Satellite convertible and noticed they aren't flat around the door handle area. I thought the driver's door may have been damaged but the passenger door has the same shape. I noticed this wehn I was blocking them. I have looked at several pictures and can't see the exact shape. So, are the doors flat (I know they are rounded from top to bottom) or is there some contour around where the door handle is? I hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance!

The door contour should be consistent around the door handle and lock area with the rest of the door shape, perhaps years of opening/closing have distorted the areas in your doors, a common issue on B bodies

Here's a few pics of a customer's 69 RR that I painted, hopefully the pics are clear (crappy cell phone pics) enough to show the area?

Mike

After you fix the area, you should install these reinforcement plates behind the door skin when you reinstall the handles after paint, it will prevent the the area from becoming distorted, even when simply bolting on the handle...common 66-70 B body problem area

Mike


FYI most vendors like YO, Classic Industries sell these

Wow, that looks good. Good info on the reinforcement plates. I didn't know about those. Having a black car, they will be helpful if I ever get it painted.

Be very careful with those reinforcement plates. They arrive flat and if you bolt them on without paying attention it will give you four dents where the corners touch the doors. Curve them around a large piece of pipe first and put some radius on them or you will learn some new swear words.

yep, been there, found out the hard way

Thanks Mike! Looks like I have quite a bit of work to get the doors straight. The pictures were very helpful.

I took another look at the doors and am totally confused. The area isn't just around the door handle but is about the rear third of the door and it runs from the top to the bottom body line. Both doors are exactly the same. It doesn't look like the doors hit anything or were damaged. Is it possible that some of the 68 doors were shaped different? Please don't think I am doubting what you are saying because I can see by your pictures you know what you are talking about. The problem I have now is trying to figure out how to make the doors straight without using a ton of filler and I don't think simple hammer and dolley work will get it done.

68-70 B body door outer skins are all the same (exc. Charger), smooth shapeless, no detail or accent lines on the vertical portion of the outer skin... Post a pic of the area...

The doors are not flat front to rear. They have a concave shape to them towards the rear of the door. I never really paid much attention to this until a friend gave me some doors that were covered in putty to get them flat front to rear and mentioned why he bought another pair of doors for his car. You'll see lots of cars that don't have this because of people puttying them.

Hard to show in a pic, but if you look at the reflection on the door you can see how it curves up in front of the door handle... this is where it starts to bend back out to the quarter.

I'll agree with you, the doors are not "surgically flat" front to rear, top to bottom, the doors have a subtle convex form that's slightly reduced in the center of the door, this is to transition the front fender to the rear qtr, a very slight "coke bottle" design, but very faint...the OP mentioned only around the door handle area initially, which would tend to make one think the door handles have induced some stress to the skin (much like this thread..lol!)...after some discussion and pics, now the OP has other concerns, that's why I said post some pics, so we can see if this is just a ghost chase?

My apologies as it appears I didn't do a very good job of describing what is going on. Unfortunately it appears I'm not smart enough to post pics. Any suggestions?

Do you have the pics saved to your computer?

I just took some pics and saved them to my computer

http://s1126.photobucket.com/user/RP27G8/media/20180411_195035.jpg.html]

post a few words or just a . to open this posting frame, then clip on FILE MANAGER below to access your computer pictures or documents or where ever you saved them to...


I saved this actual post on my "pictures" portion of my computer, when you click below to open the "FILE MANAGER', you then locate THE "BROWSE" button #2 circled in pink to open on your computer where you saved your pics, open that, then once you found your pic, click on your desired pic, it will be high lighted, then hit "OPEN" on your computer (all right clicks with the mouse, or screen touch depending on your computer)after you hit open, the file name will appear as I've circled in pink #3 in the pics below, then click on "ADD FILE" circled as #4, this adds your pic to your message/post, then click on "DONE ADDING FILES" circled as #5 in pink, this completes the post and picture(s) you've added to your post, it will bring you back to the Moparts post you opened/written and await for you to click the "SUBMIT" button

It may take a few tries to get it down....eventually we all have to learn by doing, hope this helps

Mike

That bow, body contour or whatever you want to call it... they are made that way and what I was talking about in my post above. The door are not flat as shown by your level.

If you were successful, then hit "SUBMIT" and your post/pics should appear on Moparts

Level...?