I’m getting close to reassembling the LH door for my XK140 DHC, and would appreciate advice regarding the packing trims on the door frame.
The wooden frame is fitted with a steel doorskin, and aluminium front and rear endplates. The skin is attached in the usual way, by folding the edge flange over a strip of steel screwed to the edge of the door frame. Between this steel strip and the doorskin, and at various points around the edge of the timber, a strip of something about 1" wide and fibrous in texture has been tacked, presumably for padding and possibly to build up any low spots under the doorskin. This has mostly disintegrated over the years and I can’t decide if it is cardboard, or some sort of cloth or fibre. Can anybody help, please?
The material on mine is really odd - it’s not felt, as it’s delaminating into 4 or 5 layers and tears fairly easily, looking and feeling like old, thick cardboard. I don’t fancy sticking felt in there because it’s bound to get wet, likewise cardboard. I wondered if it might be leather, but I think on balance it is some kind of card. I’ll have a think about what to replace it with - I guess closed-cell neoprene strip might do the job well, or failing that mabye bitumenised sound deadening strip. If I can get the doorskin blasted locally on a quick turn-around I might be reassembling the door soon. I’ll be so glad to get back to welding again.
I think you’re probably right about the anti-rattle application, chaps, I don’t think it would be tough enough to physically affect the position of the skin much. Odd that it was in multiple layers in some places, though, maybe just a particularly loose fit in those areas.
On one of the horizontal wood braces I had 2 plywood pieces glued on maybe 1" x 1 1/2" . This could be what you can see ? I thought to hold it off the panel to stop vibration or keeping the panel in shape .
Helpful video, Jim. I’ve found a few bits of plywood like that too. Bizarrely there was a small section machine-cut out of the rear end timber by the door latch rebates, which I faithfully reproduced in my new end plate (African red hardwood as the original). On reassembly I realised this served no function at all but was probably a deficiency in the original bit of timber which the factory had simply filled with the plywood strip. At least mine’s an accurate copy, if pointless!
Not sure, Terry. It was tacked all the way round both doors, front and rear, but in various states of decay. Surely unlikely all four end plates would be cut undersize so uniformly? I wonder what the pro Jag restorers do here.
