Sunday, February 16, 2020

Driver Door Data Plate Removal

I suspect the driver door on my Mustang was replaced at some point.  The driver side fender and quarter panel were hit at some point and have a fair amount of bondo.  The door, however, appears to have no damage.  Additionally, the door was originally white behind the door panel when the vehicle was never actually white.  That being said, it has a date stamp inside of 3 67 which matches about the time the rest of the panels on the car were produced. 

The Data Plate is held to the door with some rather stange looking rivets.  I'd like to take it off so that the car can be painted with it off.  I'll then install a reproduction made by Marti Auto Works which does not have all the damage and paint overspray on it. 


In December, I had Marti Auto Works make me a reproduction of my Data Plate.  As you can see in the picture below, the original one from the car has a bit of damage to it.  Additionally, when I wiped it off after removing it with a towel and a little cleaner it took off a large part of the original paint. 


Once the Data Plate was removed, it was obvious the holes are a little pushed in by the rivets used.  This makes the holes such that I can't really install the replacement one with the correct style rivets.  I'll need to get a different style dolly to get this smoothed out as the ones I have can't get back to these small corner areas of the door very well.



While I'm at it, I'm working on this bolt which broke off early in the restoration.  I drilled it out with progressively larger bits until I was close to the threads.  I've tried the easy out tools I have but they are not working.  I'll need to come up with something a little better to finish this job up too.


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