Door skin or a used door?

[Alan Reynolds]

fixed that for you.....

when I was a kid, next doors had a beta coupe, front suspension mount caved in with rust, thing was barely a year old...

I can vouch for that. I sold a 2 year old Beta thinking it was good and it failed it’s first MOT due to front subframe rust. lancia did agree to do all the work for free though. it did dump the steering wheel in my lap while I was driving. The column support had mental fatigue. I then bought a brand new HPE and when I collected it I thought the paint finish wasn’t,t all that clever. The paint peeled off in sheets. The importers had resprayed the car because the factory employees were putting filings in the paint and rust stains appeared on the paint. The importers didn’t strip the pre delivery protection off and the paint couldn’t stick.

 

[SierraV6]

Going back to the original question, if you can find a good door it probably makes sense to replace it. I would however then repair the existing door and either keep it or sell it on, it’s all good experience (unless you’re already very good at this kind of thing). This is what I’m doing with my XR4i, doors are getting difficult to find so whilst I’m taking the easy option and replacing the rotten drivers door with a good one I bought ages ago, I intend to improve my metal shaping and fabrication skills by repairing the existing one. There are some interesting shapes to replicate, and practice makes perfect, allegedly….