taguy16

It is normal to have a little outward bow along the length of the door panels on these cars, especially along the middle body line, or are they supposed to be board straight along the entire length? I'm trying to repair some collision damage on my left door that was previously repaired, it looks like with a stud gun and a massive amount of bondo to recreate the body line in the middle. Now there's a lot of bow along the length, some of which looks like it might be normal, but in other places it looks like the metal got stretched. It's too bad no one makes doorskins for our cars, because this car would be a good candidate for doorskin replacement. It's always a mess trying to repair someone else's bad repair job, and at the same time try to fix the body damage that they were attempting to fix to begin with.

ACebell

Curiosity got the best of me and a grabbed a whisky stick (level for the younger folks) and laid it along the body line on my passenger door. Since the interior is blown apart, I know that the door has no major damage or massive repairs inside the skin. There appears to be a slight, and I mean slight, bow on the belt line of the door. It is definitely not laser straight, and level bulb was out of range slightly.

taguy16

I checked my right door, which has had smaller repairs done to it on the front and back (mainly along the main body line) and it also has a slight bow to it, but I thought that might be due to the repairs as well. It's good to hear from someone who thinks their car's doorskin hasn't been repaired. Thanks.

I haven't gotten my left fender stripped yet, but every exterior panel on this car except the decklid has body damage on it. About half of it has been repaired, and the repairs are second rate. The good news is I've only found a small amount of rust and the floors look nearly perfect. There was a very small rustout in front of the right rear wheel and there was some serious rust pitting under where the door body side moldings were, but thank goodness that was it. This car came from this area where they salt the roads like crazy in the winter, so it's amazing to find a 1989 car with this many miles that is this rust free.