1956 Chevrolet Door Install - Swingin’ For The Fences

Here you can see the sheetmetal that has been replaced thus far; the lower hinge pocket, rocker panel, and step plate. Hopefully when Jason cut the cab apart, the support structure held everything in place, otherwise we’ll be taking two steps backward. You can get a glimpse of the support structure that’s still in place in the background around the driver’s door.

The next step is to bolt the door to the hinges to see how everything lines up.

Left slightly loose, the hinges can be manipulated using a pry bar to get the doors situated in the opening.

The door gap looked pretty good, except for the upper rear corner, which needed a bit of tweaking to get it to sit properly.

Sometimes good ol’ fashioned muscle is all it takes to get things to line up.

The gap and relationship between the cowl and the front upper corner was a bit worse, however, and required a slightly more involved technique.

First, the corner is “persuaded” outwards using a large block of wood and a mallet.

From there, it’s simple hammer and dolly work…

… until the door is flush with the cab.

The back side gap of the door also required a bit of massaging with the mallet, alternated with the hammer and dolly technique.

With the door fitted to the cab opening, we can now proceed with installing the latch mechanisms.

First, the caged nuts in the B-pillar are cleaned up and chased …

… before the striker plate is bolted in place.

The latch assembly is then fastened to the door.

Installing the linkage between the latch assembly and inner door relay is a fairly straight forward affair.

As is the outer door handle.

And there you have it! A few more patch panels on the cab and a pair of lower door patches, and our old cab will be good as new!