What about door bottoms?

[old Chevy guy]

I have been restoring a cab to put on my one ton stake body dump and out of 8 trucks I have all the doors are crap. I bought a set of inner door bottoms from a vender and the fit up up is awfull! Ive made some messed up stuff work in my day but these just are not going to cut it. Has anyone gotton door bottoms from a source that worked well or even exceptional? Im even considering buying new shells from LMC does anyone have advice pro or con on the fit and or quality of those? Thanks

[Lauppster]

I bought door bottoms from LMC, both right and left sides. No, they were not perfect, but with some attitude adjusting they turned out alright. Just based on what I have seen in aftermarket sheet metal, I am not sure that a full shell would fit any better than what I did with the bottoms. If you need a skin (when you get that far), I did an LMC one and it looks great. I have started to buy many parts from Classic Chevy Parts and am happy so far; unfortunately my sheet metal was all ordered before that time.

[old Chevy guy]

I only need the outer bottoms on the skin side . i could have made those on my break but I didnt have any sheetmetal. the inners were awfull the lines didnt match up and there were bends that were missing where the rib around the door panel is. I did one of these for someone else a long time ago and I dont remember having a problem like this.

[hugger6933]

i have a rh door on the table at my shop right now for bottoms and lower skin. The bottoms did fit alittle wierd but I made some relief cuts and some pie cuts and a little hammering to get the corners back into shape and overall am happy with it. Where the door curves at the bottom where the mating line is on my door I split the ends about two to three inch and moved the matel alittle .look at ist like that if you could move here and there to where it would cut and pry then try agian

[bobs409]

I've done 2 pairs of these so far and have another pair to do this winter. In each case so far, it's taken some work as they are not exactly shaped right.

I only use as much as needed usually cutting a good 2 inches from the top of the panel off. That's the area where it's the worst IMO.

The outer skins are really nice, no complaints with those so far. Not sure of the brands on any of these.

[old Chevy guy]

The top is definatly the worst. its just too bad,if they were made better it would have been nice to seam them under the door panel. Id just buy some good used ones (doors) but there arn't any around here for hundreds of miles. It dosent seem practical to ship them any distance either. I'm open to suggestions about that though if anyone has advice or could steer me toward something.

[68streetrod]

I used a goodmark lower inner and goodmark full outer skin on my drivers door the inner wasn't a great fit but it sounds better than what some are describing they had to do to get a good fit. The outter skin fit was awsome way better than I expected.

My passenger door I bought a real nice rust free door on ebay and had it shipped from Cali. by grayhound and truthfully I didn't have much more in a all origanial rust free door with a lot less work

[29od1]

I just thought I'd bring this to the top to see if anyone knows of a better Lower Inner door patch panel that actually matches the inside door lines and has crisp stamping?

The lower inner patches I've seen come from worn out dies that don't have crisp lines and really don't match the front edge of the inner door.

[Tim Christian]

Nobody does not make one that is really great. This is a item (inner door bottoms 67-72) thats needs to be retooled but of course they would rather sell you the whole door and yes they are one on the market now that does fit!

[rob32472]

Tim, how about a test fit and some pics to show how well they fit.......

[29od1]

That's what I thought from reading previous posts that no one made a good lower inner door patch.

I understand that tooling is expensive to make, but it seems like they could sell more than enough to recoup the cost and be profitable. Whomever makes a good door now could possibly use the same inner tool dies to stamp a bottom to sell.

I know if the word got out, they could easily have the entire market for door inner lower patches. Does anyone have any insight into talking with a manufacturer to see if this is feasible?

[Tim Christian]

Hey Rob, We have two of the complete doors hung on our cab in the warehouse. I will try to get some pictures. Trust me if myself and Jon can hang doors anybody can!

[rob32472]

Thanks tim
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[MAK191]

I did the inner lower from classic parts. It was made by key parts. The fit was poor at the top but I didn't use the whole thing. But in reality it wasn't that hard to get it to fit. I also chose to skin the whole door. I'm glad I did because I rust treated the whole inner shell and the skin fits good. efabman has a video on replacing the inner lower and the skin. Good luck

[29od1]

I agree you can make about anything work, but it would be nice to have a stamping that was crisp and correct to start with. About the only part of the inner bottom that's any good is about the bottom 1/4 of the panel. I guess it all comes down to how nice you really want something to look.

[bcutt]

Bought my lower inner door bottoms from Southern KY Classics, they fit like crap but I made them work. The door skins fit great though..