Cracked Door Skins

So I pulled my door panels off to do some work on the windows and locks and noticed the drivers side metal skin was cracked where the window motor bolts in. Has this happened to anyone and what did you do to fix it? I'm considering JB Weld as my mig is probably too hot for the thin sheet metal.

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JB Weld is a joke for this type of repair.

What kind of welder do you have? I would be surprised if you couldn't turn it down far enough to weld this. It is all about technique.

More than likely this is caused due to your door hinges sagging and the striker on the door not lining up. As you close the door, right at the last after it has made contact, does the door get forced upwards in order to get it closed? The other thing could be simply that pulling on the handle over time has caused these cracks.

Do you have electric windows? I forgot about that stress, since my rig has only manual windows.

You can weld that with a MIG as long as it isn't rotten metal. Clean it with an angle grinder. Use a series of slightly over lapping spot welds. Start with a little less than half power, Takes a little touch to find the right wire feed rate and temp. On my welder it is around 4 wire feed and 4-5 heat and a quick three count for the spot weld. The trick is to let it cool a little between spot welds and to wire brush the carbon flash off after every three welds or so. Don't even try for a bead weld.

A little slow but in the long run is quicker and easier than trying to fix the burn throughs you will likely get trying for a bead.

A few burn throughs doesn't mean anything. It has to hold, it doesn't have to look pretty or be water proof.

I really doubt JB weld is going to hold for long. If you feel you have to use JB weld use a layer of gauze or something similar to help strengthen the epoxy. A thin coat, a layer of gauze and a top coat.

Thanks guy's, I have a Lincoln buzzbox mig that's set up for flux core welding. I'll turn it way down and try to stitch it with tack welds.

Oldman, yes, unfortunately the windows are power. Funny thing is, this door is the only one that is easy to open and close. All of these doors are not original. PO swapped them out at some point. On the bright side, if I can fix this, that's one less rattle and squeak I'll have to listen to.

If you want to run it up to Loveland this weekend, I can weld that for you.

Thank you for the kind offer. I'm going to give it a try myself but if I start burning through it I'll shoot you a PM.

Or braze it and add a sheet metal doubler...