Both doors on our 93 need to be painted again this is the time to reinforce them.
I searched but all led to links with non working images (thanks Photobucket!)
Anyone who has working pictures? Are there reinforcement kits available?
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Then it was on to making a big reinforcing plate for inside the door. Little trick to get in there and make a template...but eventually I got that template made. Then I transferred it to some 1/4" plate and started cutting. Wish I had a plasma cutter....that would have made it SOOO much easier!!
Anyway here is the finished piece. I had to do a lot of drilling, and rat file work to get all those holes in the right spot.
And a slight bend in the lower area....
And installed in the door.....
Hopefully this helps the lower hinge area to stay crack free for a few years. Regardless I have a nice clean...uncracked...spare drivers door if I need it.
hank you. got the other side done. its so nice to shut the door and be greated by nothing more than "thud". even with the doors empty and gutted. they still just go thud. whereas before, empty and gutted, when you shut it you were greated by "BOINGiongiongiongiongiong" as the center of the door where the handle is at would spring in and out making some nasty racket. i very highly reccomend this to anybody in the middle of some serious body-work! it greatly improves the "perception of quality" that comes from interfacing with the truck. it seems so simple, and i can see where some people are probly thinking im some kind of freak with a massive OCD problem. but when you have been driving 72'-93' dodge trucks as long as i have (25yrs), and always thought the dodge doors felt "cheap", this is a huge deal. and actually a pretty simple fix. and if you go back and look at my first video of the door where i demonstrate the problem, then watch the after video, you can clearly see, the problem is solved! now im gonna work on a good way to stiffen the outside door handle so that it doesnt flex up and down. i think i might just have to go buy a cordless grinder for that one, and go hack that section of door out of some doors at a junk yard. then "laminate" them to the inside of my doors so that it spreads the load of the handle when you push the button, out accross the door. mine flex so bad the metal around the mounting holes for the studs in the handles is cracking, and at least one of the cracks has spread far enough that its visible from outside the truck. then if that goes well, i might try to figure out a way to reinforce the lower hinge mounting area so that the hinge doesnt destroy the door again the way it did on big-whiteys original driver door. if i get these doors structurally beefy, i will be very-very happy! although, i did spy a crack in the floor today near the drivers side front cab mount. LOL, it never ends! i guess Chrysler never intended for us to drive these trucks past 200,000miles. LOL
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