Door Springs: Health Hazzard or Very Simple

All day today it appeared that it was going to rain at any moment, but I took the chance and used an assortment of steel brushes and an air grinder to finally strip the top of the core support.  It took a few hours because it had its fair share of surface rust.

I found this date under all the crud.  It appears this core support is just 10 days away from being exactly 42 years old. 

I have been fighting these door springs for a while now.  I determined I was probably going to end up hurting myself or losing an eye so I called Ricky, the man who painted the car for me.  He let me borrow this door spring compressor.  This tool was an absolute life saver.  It probably took five minutes to complete both doors and it was safe, too.  I installed them and took the tool back when I got done.

To use the tool you just put the spring in the jaws, tighten the bolt to compress the spring, install it, and then unscrew the bolt.

There were quite a few nicks in the paint that needed to be touched up from a couple of the stubborn door pins.  I used a brush to touch them up by hand as well as all of the heads of the door hinge bolts.  I also touched up anywhere else on the car that needed a touch up and then finished the passenger rear door area that was rubbing.  I had to use an air grinder to shave some off of the door jamb and touch it back up. 

I realized I had not yet installed the rubber and routed the wires into the rear doors.  It took a while to feed the ends of the wires through the tight rubber seals.  I took some soap and water and cleaned them with a toothbrush.

That looks much better.  After I did this I greased all the door hinges and locking mechanisms with chassis grease and silicone spray.

The car was missing the driver side bolt that holds the core support to the frame.  I have been searching for a replacement to this bolt and it's accompanying bushings but I haven't been able to find one.  Several weeks ago I noticed a bolt for sale at the parts house so I made a mental note in case I couldn't find an original replacement.  The bolt had some bushings with it.  I had to customize it a bit but it ended up working well.  Here is a picture of the original on the passenger side and the one I made for the driver side.

To finish up the day I cleaned a few of the other rubber pieces with more soap and the old toothrbush.