47-55.1 55 years ago I was given this USAF 54 3100

[VWNate1]

Understood, been there and done that .

For serious good door repair one removes the exterior skin for hammer and dolly works then sorts out the hinges and other fitment issues, once that's all done and the door opens, closes and latches okay you tack on the outer door skin as close to the belt line matching as you can then open it and slowly finish it .

As I've said so many times : when new most of the Advance Design trucks were sold long before they were made and GM refused to run a third shift so Ford was beating them in light truck sales, GM's answer was to crank up the line as fast as it'd go and shove them out the door with appalling build quality .

The old Hot Rodder in my old shop spent over a year fighting with his cab, the passenger side door (it almost always seems to be the passenger side) on his '49 3100 series was simply awful, mostly the cab's jog work was done so poorly that no amount of pulling, stretching, bending, cutting and welding would give him a decent closing door much less one that wasn't at least 1/4" off along the belt line .

There is a company called (IIRC) "Trique" that makes modern day door latch kits for your '54, they're safer too .