door striker, metal split :(

[dac69er]

any ideas on the best way to tackle this?

top left spotweld has a pretty bad split. bottom right one is just starting to go.

door has always be a bit of a bitch to close, obviously the extra flex wasn't helping matters!

was thinking of just adding a few extra tacks on the support plate from behind to spread the load. not much I can to to repair the splits themselves without going mad!

 

[Jay]

That doesn't look healthy at all, never came across it before myself. If it had been a black GT I'd just said grab a fresh door but the blackish greens are getting rarer. I'm not a metal worker but is there any way of adding some reinforcement to the support bracket Dunc?

Jay

 

[dac69er]

It's not the door, it's the body side.

Spoke with my dad and he said it was a common problem with Ford's once upon a time, but like you said, never seen a starlet with the issue before.

He reckoned the best course of action would be to remove the reinforcing plate, drill the ends of the cracks to stop them spreading, then add another larger reinforcing plate as well as the original one to spread the load.

Any other suggestions are more than welcome!