Doors, Body Panels & Sheet Metal in Dallas, TX

Six things worth knowing before you order

• A door skin is cheaper than a shell but only worth it when the inner frame is straight, because the frame is what carries the hinge and latch loads.
• Most reproduction patch panels come in 20 gauge where the factory used 18, which is thinner than the original and needs a lighter hand on the welder.
• Weld-through primer on the mating flanges is not optional. Bare steel sandwiched between two panels in Texas humidity turns into rust bloom inside a couple of summers.
• We cut flat sheet at the counter with no minimum, because half the rust repairs that walk through the door need one odd rectangle and nothing else.
• Cab corners and dog legs are the two panels people underestimate, since the rust that shows on the outside has usually already eaten the inner brace behind it.
• Door check straps snap and everybody replaces the hinge instead. The strap is the part with the spring-loaded roller and it is a fraction of the cost.
• Side intrusion beams are welded inside the door shell and they are the reason a shell costs what it does. A skin has no beam and no structural role.
• Door hinges on most vehicles are welded to the A pillar and bolted to the door, so a sagging door is usually the door-side bolts and the check strap rather than the hinge.
• Trunk floor sections and spare wheel wells rust from the inside out because the drain plugs block, and by the time it shows in the boot it has gone through.
• Dog leg panels at the bottom rear of a door opening are structurally connected to the rocker, and a rusted dog leg means the rocker needs looking at too.
• Panel bonding adhesive has a working time of around ninety minutes and a clamp time measured in hours, so a bonded skin is not a job that gets rushed at four on a Friday.
• Cutting a floor pan out without bracing the shell first is how a car comes off the jack with the doors no longer closing.