The Yankee Express restomod build thread.

[Ghostrider 67]

The doors were an even larger issue. Audi doors are small, Coronet doors are huge flat things.
I needed the dash contour lines to flow through the door elements as well. But, the Audi door panels made that impossible. So, thinking outside the box I removed or deconstructed the Audi panel elements from the unusable panel/card. Laying a door down inside face up i laid the elements on it and had another thinking session. It lasted for weeks. What a puzzle.
I finally had an idea of how to go about it and decided it was best to hang the door in place on the car and proceed from there. I closed the door and hold up the main matching piece that carried the lines through from the dash. This showed me what need to be done to have it there permanently. The problem was I didn't know HOW to make it happen. I had never done this sort of work before.
Much research and video watching, and question asking later, I had a plan.
To my dismay I had cut away some of the supporting plastic bits that I now needed to make this work. So, I ended up buying a set of door cards on line and deconstructed THOSE cards as well.
I mocked up where I wanted the section to set and clamped it up. Out came the heavy duty spray foam cans. The pieces being clamped up stopped the swelling foam from moving them as it expanded and caused it to expand INTO all cavities. I let it dry for a few days and then trimmed the excess and sanded. Good so far. But, it needed to be stronger. I popped out the fake wood grain inserts and sunk screws into the door panel in several places to bolster it up. Some filler and sanding later and it looks like it belongs there. Next came the pull handle/armrest base combo. This had mounted to the Audi card with a curving platform. The Dodge door is dead flat. I made a base for the short end of the arm out of a hardwood piece and found spots in the base of the piece to sink mounting screws through the door card. I watched a video of a kid building door panel speaker mounts using cloth saturated in resin. It worked perfectly to mold around the base of the armrest. The upper piece also holds a speaker and the door release pull handle. This placed the handle on the opposite corner of the door from stock. Now I would need to fabricate a linkage to tie them together that would not intersect the window glass or mechanisms. The arm rest also holds the electric window switches and power lock buttons. These all had to be worked into the panel as well. On the Audi doors there's a 'cubby' along the bottom that tips out and also has the seat memory buttons on it. Incorporating that into the Dodge door was a treat. But I figured it out.