Compared to the rest of the van, the loading doors were still in a very acceptable condition. Besides a big dent in the left loading door and rotten lower bottoms of both the doors, there was not much we could do to prepare them for paint.
Just as the other doors, both loading doors were sandblasted to make sure that what we saw is what we had. While grinding away the bottom of the doors it was pretty self-evident that they required replacement; completely rusted. I made both the door bottoms myself by folding a piece of sheet metal into angle of approximately 95 degrees. I spot-welded a 12 mm strip on one side of the angle bar to recreate the original door bottom. The water drainage can easily be made by placing the strip on a vice; with the vice opened on the drain’s size; carefully hammer the drain into the angle bar.
For the uncovered rusted places of the loading doors we used the following procedure:
Bright grind the metal
Apply Fertan to convert the rust
Zink or copper coating
Metal primer
After the rusted places have been treated, start fitting the new bottom. I made the strip slightly longer than required, so I could fold the excessive material around the edges of the door; saves you from welding additional separate pieces to fill up the gaps.
Be sure you use air to cool the metal when finishing the weld that attaches the bottom to the door skin. This will prevent the metal to deform due to the heat generated from welding. One of my friends tin plated all the welds to ensure that rust will stay away for a while; tin files up the little wholes that might be left from my inferior welding ;-) After we degreased the metal we applied the filler and sanded it all down to a nice, paint ready, result.
