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Door Skin - FHC - 1961/62 Flat Floor - LH

Door Skin - FHC - 1961/62 Flat Floor - LH

  • $425.00


Jaguar E-Type - 1961/62 Flat Floor Series 1 3.8-liter, 6-cylinder FHC (2-seat coupe) - LH Door Skin - Steel.

THIS IS A SPECIAL 2-PIECE DOOR SKIN for 1961 and early 1962 Flat Floor E-Types ONLY!

The early E-Type Doors were skinned in 2 pieces - the top portion above the "swoop" is a separate piece that is spot-welded on, and then on coupes, this spot-welded seam was leaded over and smoothed.

If you have a flat-floor E-Type with this early door skin, you MUST have this special skin - as the "swoop" itself is a different shape.  Also, the value of these early cars and the current level of knowledge around them demands that these types of details are present!

This two-piece skin will be delivered to you in two pieces - you will fit the upper piece to the door while fitting the door to the body shell and then spot-weld (or plug-weld) the upper piece in place.  This is how Jaguar did it in 1961, and it makes lining up the door MUCH easier, but it also makes the bodywork a bit more tedious, so I'm pretty sure that is why they went to the later style pressed one-piece doors...

Our door skins are carefully made to very precise patterns and contour gauges.

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ALL E-TYPE DOORS ARE DIFFERENT, but we have fine-tuned our patterns for over 10 years and they are a very good compromise between all of the original doors that have passed through the shop over the years (which is well over 100 - there are at least 30 in a pile upstairs...).

NOTE - SERIES 2 DOOR SKINS ARE DIFFERENT!!!  The outside door handle mounting holes are in a different location - it's not alot - 1/4" in one direction and 1/8" in another, but if you use a Series 1 door skin (which is all anyone else sells...) on a Series 2, your door handle linkage inside the door will bind and never work right...  WE ARE THE ONLY SOURCE FOR CORRECT SERIES 2 DOOR SKINS WORLDWIDE!

Delivered in fresh, bare steel coated in a light oil for rust-prevention, simply wipe down with solvent before priming.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT E-TYPE DOORS - READ THIS!!!

Jaguar built the body shells and the doors by hand, and while the bodies have more uniformity than they get credit for, the door openings and doors are all different.  You never know what you are going to get when you skin a door by hand, and so once they were completed at the factory, they were sorted into 4 piles based on size (width from front to back…) - A, B, C, and D sizes...

As the body shells were completed, the door openings were measured, and a door of the generally correct size that would simply fit within the door opening was chosen and mounted.  Then, to complete the job and give the door uniform gaps all around, the body shell was leaded and filed to match THAT door...  You will find the lead mostly along the horizontal front edge just below the A-post, and along the whole back edge.  They never put lead along the front edge since the clearance here is critical for proper opening.  I think they mounted the doors to match the front edge and then leaded everything else as needed...

What this means is that once you re-skin your doors, they are NOT going to fit your door opening - PERIOD.  In some places, you will need to add metal to some edges with a MIG a little at a time, and then sculpt it to match the body.  In other places, you will need to grind the skin down - which will separate the folded edge - and you will need to re-weld that and sculpt it.  It is ALOT of work - not to mention that correctly skinning the doors is a very difficult job in itself, but very nice results can be achieved if you take your time.

For these reasons, you should really think twice before deciding to re-skin your doors.  If I was dealing with a door with NO rust and just dents, I would remove them as best I could with careful hammer and dolly work.

If you have a door - like most - that is only rusted along the bottom, we make a very nice lower door skin patch.  It can be made to whatever height you need - we usually make them 2.5" high with a stepped upper edge that also has a reinforcing rib to help control warpage and also gives you an edge that can be tweaked from inside the door after welding to help straighten things out.  Using this lower door repair means that you will only be dealing with a small portion of the door gap - and will leave the most complicated areas of the door gap undisturbed.

All of that being said - sometimes you HAVE to re-skin the door and in these cases you should just bite the bullet and do it.  What can also determine whether or not you should is if you have done the whole body shell on an OTS and the door opening is disturbed anyway - in that case you are going to be doing all of the above fitting, grinding, and welding even if you keep your original doors…

ONE FINAL NOTE - As I said, re-skinning an E-Type door is a very tricky job.  MANY people have really made a mess of this in the past.  One thing that you will see on MANY restored E-types is the rear lower corner of the door sticking out “proud” of the body shell.  This is common and easy to screw up, but is also easy to avoid - IF you know what you are doing.  I am not willing to give away ALL of my secrets to the general public, but if you do purchase our door skins, you can call and speak to me directly and I will tell you everything you need to know to do the job correctly. - Chuck. :-)


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