A few weeks ago, more than 50,000 of you read my story about how the doors are made and why the driver side door of my 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee refused to close. Several tack welds broke, and a huge hem flange failed, causing cracks, causing my door to sag, and the latch no longer aligned with the striker. Now my jeep is repaired with the help of professional welders; this is what he did.

I consider myself an edge welder. I am very good at welding structural parts such as frames because they don't have to look beautiful, and I almost don't have to worry that I will blow a hole in the thick metal. But when it comes to sheet metal parts like my rare 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee five-speed door—you can forget it; I have exceeded my depth.

Fortunately, a Jalopnik reader named Dan is a welding genius. He and I met at an unauthorized Jalopnik party in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Troy, Michigan (there is another party this Friday-Detroit, join this Facebook page), and after reading my story, he Offer to see my messy door.

Here are a few failed photos for reference:

Cut all the wires. It is modular, including wire strippers, crimpers and wire cutters. It is specially designed to handle data cables such as Ethernet cables.

The hem flange split almost all the way to the front edge of the door:

So, I unlocked the electrical connector of the speaker (not the lock and the window, because remember, this magic machine has a crank window and a manual lock), and removed the four small bolts that fasten the door to the A-pillar . That's all it takes to close that ridiculously heavy door.

I threw the lid on my Jeep J10 pickup and put the door in Dan's great Mercedes diesel station wagon during the party. A few days later, Dan called me and said he was done. He did a great job.

His approach is actually very clever. My plan, if I did it myself, would have been to lift the door up when I was in the car, and then try to do some small spot welding in the right place, although things would be very stressful. My biggest worry is the overheating of the paint on the outside of the door. This is the main reason why I decided to abandon this project.

Dan solved the problem, he put a wet towel on the outside of the door and nailed the inside at the same time. But first, he must make sure everything is aligned, so he uses a "friction jack".

Also called "monkey on stick", this is basically just a big rod with a jack mechanism on it. Different accessories allow the tool to be used for pulling and pushing. The main purpose of the tool is to align the body and frame parts.

Push the monkey stick into the speaker hole, one end is pushed onto the door metal plate near the door frame, and the other end is supported on the speaker hole. Dan arranges the red paint in such a way that all the unpainted gray metal is hidden, which means The part is now perfectly aligned.

At that time, Dan nailed some small welds to the door. These welds were penetrated enough, but not too deep, so as not to damage the exterior wall paint. The exterior wall paint was again protected by a damp cloth.

The results may not be very good (the welds are small spots), but they are effective.

I knocked on the door with some refinish paint from the local parts store (Dan applied the primer) and things looked good:

The following is the appearance of the door frame area today:

When I was in the conference call, my friend Brandon graciously dealt with the alignment of the door. He moved the firing pin and removed the spacers found between the door and the hinge on the A-pillar-he thought these spacers might have been added by the former owner to compensate for sagging. Without gaskets, the pinstripes on the door are perfectly aligned with the pinstripes on the rear door:

The drooping door kept hitting the firing pin on the B-pillar, and there was a little damage (metal crack) in the latch area. I patched this up with a reinforcing plate, which is secured by three latch screws and three rivets:

The top of the door didn't kiss the weather strip outside as I wanted, but it was close. Maybe I will hang outside the door and try to bend inward a bit:

The door opens and closes beautifully and feels solid. Dan did a great job.

On the phone, he described what he did. "[I] pushed the [door] to where all the paint lines were in a row and rubbed the paint off so that I could weld it, nail it, and weld the big hole," he told me. "You can see where the rivet pops out, so it's like a hole." (I think he was referring to a broken tack weld).

The way he described it was obvious, it was a trivial job for Dan, even though it would make me sweat. This is not surprising, because Dan has been welding and tightening for decades. He told me that he started with a bicycle that picked up garbage, and then a lawn mower. After graduating from high school, he learned about car body repair. After serving in the army for four years, he began to do prototype work for suppliers, and then went into "car welding".

"I made some very good cars by myself," he said. He did some welding work on the Cadillac La Salle C-Hawk in 39 years. He "basically re-welded the [rusted] frame together" on the Corvette in 1964. He told me that he is currently working Studying the Chevrolet Nova in 1966 and the Ford T in 1926. "I have made countless Mustangs...I used to build roll cages for cars in Watford Hill," he told me.

This guy knows what he is doing, and-speaking of welding sheet metal-I definitely don't know. This is the best $100 I have ever spent (note that he only had $50). Dan is that person.