While I’m waiting for the used engine to rebuild for the Chevy I’m going to get some work done on the ’66 Studebaker Commander.
I need to go over all the doors eventually, but for now just the drivers door. I’ll be removing the ’66 lower door trim in favour of the wider ’63 trim that goes along the upper side lining up with the door handles.
Door off and the vent and door window removed.
I scraped away the sound deadner, cleaned and sanded around the five lower trim holes. I then applied a fibreglass patch with two coats of fibreglass resin. I will cover them with black automotive coating later. On the outside I’ll fill the holes with two part body filler with short tiger hair. I’ll then skim that with regular body filler for the final treatment.
There was no way I could get the attaching clips fitted into the new cat wiskers for the outside of the door. I did find a way to pop rivet the old clips to the strip.
I broke off the mounting tabs and drilled them for a 1/8″ pop rivet. I then drilled the cat wisker in the proper locations and attached each clip. Worked a charm 🙂
Next I removed the old door seal. I wanted to remove all the old glue so that the new adhesive would have bare paint to stick to. The best solution after trying some other stuff was plain house paint thinner and small chunks of course scrubbing pads. I will also clean and sand all the exposed metal for a later coat of new paint.
Next : painting and re-assembly.