Door beam - salvageable?

[Alan_M]

The strip down of my car proceeds. The passenger door beam is generally solid except for the area of rust shown in the photos. I plan on welding in new metal - any comments on if this is a good or bad idea? It has clearly rusted where there is a piece of foam wrapped around the beam to prevent air being forced into the door and subsequently into the interior causing cold drafts. Any one come up with a better solution?

Inside face



Bottom edge

[Lotus-e-Clan]

My Clan door beams (very similar to Excel beams) looked like that. Got my local garage to weld in new sheet metal. The only downside was the extra weight ...they must have used armour plate for extra crash protection!! Otherwise all functional and good.

[Hawaiis0]

So long as you can maintain the mount points I would say yes.

[bash]

With that much welding I would build a jig to hold it in place and judge any heat movement in the assembly. Some cheap chipboard would do, and keep the welds short.
Short answer is ,yes, its savable
Bash
Ps, fill it with closed cell plumbers foam when you have finished, keeps water out and its stronger

[MetBlue]

Agree salvageable, but I also agree with holding on a jig. It will banana badly with that much metal to replace if you don't.
Nearly finished drafting a post on my recent door beam replacement and will post later. I make a comment in that about keeping the beam shape if you weld.
Tony

[Alan_M]

I guess I could clamp it back to back onto the other solid beam. As that’s metal to metal it may even help soak away some of the heat?

[Lotus-e-Clan]

Didn't have any distortion issue with mine. All location points remained true. Like I said, Clan door beams are very similar to the Excel, perhaps because they were both designed by Lotus engineers?

[MetBlue]

I guess I could clamp it back to back onto the other solid beam. As that’s metal to metal it may even help soak away some of the heat?

That's a great idea. I'd get some M5 threaded rod and tube to make half a dozen equal length spacers maybe 4 or 5 inches long. Then bolt back to back ( or front to front) through the M6 threaded locations. It will also hold the bottom window fixing nut in place which looks to be corroded out in your picture.

I replaced virtually the entire flat sheet in one door beam as it was badly corroded along the whole bottom edge, but miraculously, the pressed piece was virtually untouched by the evil tin worm.

The flat sheet is spot welded on (with just a short seam weld near the door mount angle plate). I drilled the spots out, then puddle welded the new plate through the drilled hole. The front but joint to the original beam was "outside" the door shell, so it was seamed and then ground flat. You couldn't see the joint once dressed
In my experience, the beam will banana If you don't brace. I've done 2 now and they both went to some extent or other.

Tony