Well actually Old Guy made it sound simple. In theory it is. My passenger side door was beat up pretty good when I got it, I fixed it the best I could and left it at that. The door handle had been pushed into the door slightly, which warped the sheet metal in the area, which is the main reason I took them off...I wanted to straighten up the door and once I saw how well the pass. side came out, I did the driver's side as well. Basically, take the handle off and the lock out. You will have 3 holes. You will notice that the rear part of the handle is recessed into the door slightly, so I cut out the entire recessed part. Then, I just cut out a piece of sheet metal to match the size/shapes of each of the holes and used about 200 tack welds to hold them in. Welding them in is the hardest part. You have to do a VERY slight tack, then use a wet cloth to cool it off, then do it over & over until you have it welded in. It takes a while! The first side (passenger side) I did, I got in too big of a hurry & warped the door skin, so I had to use quite a bit of filler to smooth it out. Other side I learned my lesson and took my time. Took about 2 hours to weld the fillers in only. Then I had to grind the tacks down, again slowly so heat doesn't build up & warp the door skin....flap wheel works the best) and this time VERY little filler was needed. I probably could have gone without using any at all, but I wanted the body line to disappear gradually so I had to add some filler to extend the body line a little bit. But it turned out good and I impressed myself. Not bad for an amateur and for someone who HATES body & paint work. For the latches, I'll post up some pics when I get the masking off. They were easy, but this is a race car with plastic windows. If you're doing a street car, you probably have a few options. Electric door "poppers", hidden latches, graft in a latch from another car (I thought about using late model Taurus outside latches for a smoother look) or whatever. This is where you can get creative. All in all, it was easy. Would have been easier if I hadn't warped the metal on the passenger side, but we'll chalk that up to lack of experience.
