How to repair and reskin a door properly.
Turbo Mini Forums

Got rusty doors? Best mess around getting second hand doors or spending a fortune with the mini door company. Alternatively you could fix your own, it's not rocket science....

You'll need some tools. Mig welder, sealant and gun, skin folding tool and a hammer and dolly. You can get away with just the hammer and dolly if you don't have access to a skin folding tool.



Grinder with flap wheels and slicing disks (1mm disc). If you want a top finish, then roloc disks are a good investment.



If you can get one, a spot welder will make mounting the skin much easier.



The first job is to strip the door and get the old skin off. A haines manual or something will tell you how to get everything off, but it's essentially screws and bolts.

The first job is to grind through the lip where the skin is folded over the edge of the frame. Grind through the lip and peel of the inner lip.




There are four spot welds on factory fitted skins. One under the door handle screw hole, one at roughly the same point on the opposite side and two along the base around 6" from the corners. You will need to do some grinding around the base of the window frame on each side and on the sides of the frames where the skins are mig welded on.



The skin should peal of now. So far so good, nothing too difficult.

Some doors split on the join between the lower half of the frame and the window frame. Repair this with the mig welder and clean it up again.

The next job is to repair the frame. This door only needed a minor repair, so was nice and easy.





I just use sheet steel to repair the bottoms, I've never found a repair panel that fitted well. I will happily repair a frame with rust almost round to inner face. This particular door had a load of filler in the skin and inner face when I got it. Took ages to bash it out...



To repair that one I cut a section of steel to fit the width and clamped it to the inside of the frame. Then drew round it and trimmed the steel and door to suit.



Then clamped it, tacked it and weld up the gaps.





Then clamped a length of steel box section to the outside of the frame and used that as a guide to fold the steel over. The steel is 20mm diameter and is a good guide for cutting the excess of the bottom. Once it's folded trim the ends and weld the joins.





Then it's just a case of trimming the lip, cleaning up the welds and making sure the skin fits in the right place. Don't forget to drill the three drain holes in the fold, otherwise you risk water pooling in your door and that would be gay.



Once the frame is repaired and cleaned up, remove all traces of rust and prime all bare metal. If you have access to a spot welder, then I recommend welding the skin to the frame as it ensures it doesn't move around when you are folding the lip over.

Clean the paint of both sides of the door when you are going to weld and drill holes to pool weld the skin to the window frame.



Line the frame up with the screw hole for the handle and the paint lines on the window frame. Ideally you would trial fit the door in the opening of your car if that is possible. Clamp it to the frame and do the spots.




One of my spot welds melted the skin a little :$ So I welded it up with the mig and cleaned it up with the grinder and roloc disks.



Prime any bare metal. Cellulose primer absorbs moisture, so if the door is going to be sat for any length of time cover it with colour paint. I just used what ever aerosol I have lying round.



Remember if you are going to place your door with the new expensive skin against a surface, make sure you put something soft (blanket, pillow, bubble wrap etc) between the skin and the surface. Make sure you don't set this on fire....

The next job is to start to fold the lip over. I use a hammer and dolly to take it about half way over. I usually go round the frame twice to do this. The more passes you make, the less likely you are to damage the skin.



At this point, run a bead of sealant/glue around the area under the lip. The factory didn't do this and as a result water got in and the doors rotted. Then start to fold the lip over with the skinning tool.



Make at least 3 passes around the frame. On the curved corner, it's best to squash a bit and then miss a bit. Then return to the missed bit once you get round the corner.



For the final pass with the skinning tool, overlap the clamps slightly to ensure a good seal.



Wipe of any excess sealant and finger as much as possible into the join in the square corner.



All that's left to do now is mig weld the tops of the skin to fold join and pool weld the two holes on the bottom of the window frame.



Clean up your welds and paint any bare metal and you're done. Wasn't that hard was it?



Once the door is painted and ready to go onto the car, fill the bottom of the door with cavity wax. This stops moisture getting into the join between then skin and frame. This and the sealant should make your doors last a long time.

Edited by apbellamy on 26th Aug, 2013.

Looks very good Andy well done, This just makes me want to fit alloy skins now lol.

I have started posting on Instagram also my name on there is turbomk1golf

Nothing is impossible it just costs more and takes longer.

To be fair the Alu skins on mine were a pain in the arse to fit and didn't fit well. If I change my doors I will be putting genuine steel skins on.

great guide buddy
Ill just add dont get that sikaflex stuff on your hands, its nearly impossible to get off!

as im sure your about to find out


gotta say ive got alu skins on mine so dont tend to worry about rust
that and its parked in my garage being the queen its is lol

Reading up on RTS Clutches

Excellent guide Andy, cheers for posting this!

Still dreading do my rot box doors but this adds a little confidence, lol.

Bring them up hear and I'll help you Carl.

Thanks for the offer Andy, I'll be in touch mate.

Great skills!

Imo it does however show how good an offer the mini door company provides at £149 per restored door once you start adding up all costs involved for a home resto using all the parts and tool shown:

Skinning tool: £45
Roloc/angle discs: £ 10
Body hammer/dolly: £ 25
Sikaflex: £ 12
Primer/wax: £ 10
Spot welder: £ 585
Door skin: £ 70
Repair section lower frame: £ 0 - 20

This assumes someone already has access to more generic tools such as angle grinder and mig
welder. Even when leaving the spot welder out of the equation since it is not absolutely necessary, it shows that doing a single door is more expensive than outsourcing the job while a pair is only marginally cheaper....that is if you not f-up your first attempt and ruin a new skin

Fair point. I'll do it for less than the mini door company and they fit non gen skins.

You can do it cheaper than that if you shop round. My skinning tool was about £15 used from ebay and my spot welder was about £400. That tube of sikaflex was an ebay bargain at about £4 delivered.

I am a tw@ for buying tools though. I like having the right tool to do a job

In the past I made a skin folder from a pair of plumbers grips and some flat bar.

Edited by apbellamy on 25th Aug, 2013.

Nice one Andy, I often wondered how its done properly

I seriously doubt it!

I was thinking of you when I put this together Paul

Well just aslong as you weren't thinking of me while having your buttplug in

I seriously doubt it!

EEEEEWWWW ^^^^^^!!!!!

good guide andy and just at the right time .

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

Hi Andy,what were your problems with the alu skins? I keep thinking about reskinning the Midget doors,which are simpler if you ignore the handle/lock holes.

'Where does the engine go?'

They weren't a good fit. Took a bit of attaching to the window frame so the I could still have wind up windows.

Edit: if you are fitting alu skins, make sure you paint any areas where the steel and alu meet. Otherwise you risk electrolyte corrosion.

Edited by apbellamy on 25th Aug, 2013.

Would you just rivet into the top wind frame where you would weld if using ally door skins?

Yes, but the rivets intrude on where the rubber window seal goes. I ended up using blind rivets which where a PITA as I didn't have the right tool and couldn't get to where I needed to..

nice guide, anyone know if its same for mk1 doors?

It's similar, apart from mk1 doors have an extra support welded onto the skin where the hinges go.

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www.fusionfabs.co.uk



1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

Thanks Andy,I have no windows and a strip on top of the door to rivet to.However I would be starting with a flat sheet of alu.

'Where does the engine go?'

It shouldn't be too bad in your case then Steve.

I've welded a channel into the top of my alu skinned doors so that I can fit plastic mk1 style windows. This means that you have a nice but of steel to glue the top of the skin to. It stiffens the floppy skin up a fair bit.

In the 13's at last!.. Just

Added more pic's of the frame repair process.

Interestingly, the white door was made in 89 and felt a lot more flimsy and was quite rotten. The red one came from a 78 car and appeared original. That one didn't feel as flimsy and wasn't particularly rotten. Shows what Rover did to the build quality...

andy , where would you say is the best place to get new skins ?

Medusa + injection = too much torque for the dyno ..https://youtu.be/qg5o0_tJxYM

MiniSpeed have 12.5% off at the min Robert.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=648...&type=3&theater

I have started posting on Instagram also my name on there is turbomk1golf

Nothing is impossible it just costs more and takes longer.