A look at original late 1911/early 1912 front doors

[NealW]

The 1911 touring car that I restored (a November 1911 build) originally came equipped with the newly introduced removable front doors. The are visible on the car from a 1923 photo that I have of it, but disappeared by the time the second owner got it in the mid 30s. The firewall still had the original mounting holes for the doors.

The car has a Baudette body, but the project came with a pair of unrestored front front doors. The first pair were in great shape structurally, but were appear to have been made by Hayes and would not fit the car. That is why the previous owner got a second pair of Baudette built doors from Keith Townsend. The good news is those fit the car, but the bad news was that they were in pretty rough shape requiring a lot of work restoring them.

Anyway, the Hayes doors are in amazing shape and so I took a few pictures showing what the doors originally looked like coming from the Hayes factory. A couple of observations are:

1) You can see faint brush strokes in the original paint. I have previously read on the forum site that Ford and their body suppliers used to do that to smooth out the paint, as I think that more traditional paint sprayers weren't invented until the mid 20s.

2) The workmanship on the doors, both Hayes and Baudette, was surprisingly poor. Both in construction and the installation of the upholstery.

3) The inner upholstery panels are fabric with a rubberized coating with burlap underneath.

4) There's been lots of discussion over the years over what was the real tint of the "mostly black" midnight blue paint used during that timeframe. Like when I disassembled and removed the seat upholstery on the 11 when I restored it, all paint; including that hidden by the inner door lining, is "mostly black, black". What, if any, trace of blue was on these doors, including that hidden, is long gone and all the paint is black. Not trying to start a debate/argument about the true paint color was back then, just the observation that can be seen today!

[NealW]

I mentioned in my original post that the Baudette doors were in ROUGH shape. Here are the before and after pictures. I just finished color sanding and buffing out the urethane paint yesterday. Now time to install the hardware and door panels.

[Rich P. Bingham]

Thanks for posting, Neal ! It's always a treat to see original condition bodies and parts. The restoration looks super !

[JTT3]

Neal, as the professional collector of front doors for 1912 tourings, until I found the correct ones on my fourth purchase, I feel your pain. Very nice job on your doors.

Best John

[KWTownsend]

Neal-
Superb work on your fore-doors! I sincerely hope that you put them on the car. We need to have more late 1911 cars on the road with fore-doors. I found a set for Pete Ratledge (RIP), too. Although he restored them, he never put them on. I think they look cool and were only used for a couple of months!

John-
The fore-doors you have are:
#1 Slab side 1912
#2 Hayes bodied late 1911 (just like the doors that Neal got that Chad had)
#3 I have a theory about these fore-doors, but need confirmation of their origin. I believe these were the fore-doors that Ford offered in late 1912, to retrofit earlier 1911 non-fore-door cars. I need to spend some time in the Benson Archives...

Here are mine (beaudette) when the paint was fresh:

And with pinstripe!

: ^ )

Keith

[JTT3]

Keith I think you are over the target with the 3rd set of doors. A person at Chickasha bought them and knew what they were. He said they were for early 1911 tourings prior to the rollout of the doors mid to late production 1911 to make them look more modern. That particular set had more hardware than the other 2 sets but I lost all those pictures I save on a desktop computer in my shop from the fire.

[NealW]

John-
The fore-doors you have are:
#1 Slab side 1912
#2 Hayes bodied late 1911 (just like the doors that Neal got that Chad had)
#3 I have a theory about these fore-doors, but need confirmation of their origin. I believe these were the fore-doors that Ford offered in late 1912, to retrofit earlier 1911 non-fore-door cars. I need to spend some time in the Benson Archives...

Keith, do you, or anyone else, know of a source of info on how to tell who made the different front doors in the 11/12 era? There is not part number or markings that I can tell on my spare set of doors, unless it is under the fabric door panels, but they do look like John's #2 doors. The exception being it had bolts going through the panel that holds the thick steel strap on, where as John's don't. You can see the bolt holes in the panels on my original post.

Thanks,

Neal

[NealW]

deleted duplicate post

[JTT3]

Oh my is there a 5th style? Keith & Neil look at my picture middle door set, the section that attaches to the firewall looks different than Neal’s where the front section intersects with the door. Now look at the bottom picture that front section looks more like Neal’s (just the front section not the door)

[Original Smith]

This is the kind of post I enjoy seeing on the Forum! Keep it up!

[got10carz]

Here's a picture of one I have. I'd sell it if someone needs it.

[NealW]

Oh my is there a 5th style? Keith & Neil look at my picture middle door set, the section that attaches to the firewall looks different than Neal’s where the front section intersects with the door. Now look at the bottom picture that front section looks more like Neal’s (just the front section not the door)

John,

Here is a close up of the fixed portion of the Hayes RH door, where it has an approximately 1/2" thick piece of wood ahead of the metal skin. The Baudette fixed door piece appears to be about that much longer and has a forward bead in the skin, where the Hayes piece does not. It is possible that someone added the bolts through the door piece on this door piece later on to beef it up.

[KWTownsend]

Neal,
As I said in my previous post, I have not researched the Benson Archives. My empirical data is based upon surviving original samples and original photographs from known cars.

That said, I have seen many different ways and different hardware used for attaching fore-doors. Sometimes wood screws were used to hold brackets on, sometimes carriage bolts were used that went through the sheet metal.

Most 1911 production still used the Murphy fasteners for the front side curtains at the bottom of the body, but later in fore-door production, the location was changed to the top of the fore-door.

In the actual fore-door shape, in my experience, the fore-doors on Hayes bodied cars have a sharp "point" where the "dip" in the fore-door meets with the hinge side of the door jam. Like the "wrong" doors Chad had and John's #2 doors.

The Beaudette (aka 'Pontiac') bodied cars have about a 1-1/2" flat area between the hinge area and the dip. Beaudette fore-doors have a body number stamped into the wood on the underside the fore-doors. I have not seen body numbers in the underside of Hayes fore-doors.

The door #3 in John's photo is like the fore-doors that are on Phil Mino's (RIP) car. Jason is now its caretaker.

After careful inspection of that car, it is my belief that car was made without fore-doors and the fore-doors on the car are the aftermarket fore-doors that Ford offered in late 1912. Here is an ad from a page from the Sept -Oct 1912 Ford Times.

fore-door ad Ad Sept Oct 1912 Ford Times.jpg (33.01 KiB) Viewed 3575 times

Unfortunately every sample of that style of fore-door I have seen or spoken with owners have had NO numbers anywhere.

Another interesting note about this type of fore-door is the side of the seat on these cars is rounded. The side of the seat on Beaudette cars is squared off. The sills on the Beaudette cars taper and widen from the front to the armrest area and the dogleg in the body is eliminated with the wider sill.

[KWTownsend]

Steve-
Thanks for sharing. That fore-door appears to be Beaudette. The nailed-on trim tells me it was made sometime before body B-22927. Later Beaudette bodies had a rolled-in bead. The hole in the top left is likely where a carriage bolt was used to attach a bracket. The hole on the right is where one side of the bulb horn bracket was attached. The other side of the bracket would have been on the side of the seat.

Pinstripe Ashbacher 9.JPG (26.92 KiB) Viewed 3559 times

In my experience, Beaudette fore-doors numbers are stamped on the bottom on the passenger side. Is there by chance a number on the bottom?

: ^ )

Keith

[JTT3]

Neal & Keith what is amazing is in the first picture with the 3 sets the middle and bottom have that extra piece of wood on the end but on the driver side doors, Guys don’t you just love the mystery & intrigue. Best John

PS, This has made me remove the taproot from the couch & making me go look at the doors that were the right ones for my 12. I’m very worried because this will require me to use valuable calories to investigate thus forcing me to go to Main Street cafe & diner refill any depleted energy resources.

[got10carz]

There is no number I can find. The bottom wood looks like it was lightly fitted with a chisel.

[JTT3]

Steve can you tell if on the end that would attach to the firewall does it look as though it’s missing a block of wood that ran the length of that end?

[got10carz]

John, I would say there was no additional wood block.

[Wayne Sheldon]

This is the kind of post I enjoy seeing on the Forum! Keep it up!

Me too!!!

[KWTownsend]

The notches on the front end of the fore-door are there for relief for the special bolts nuts that are used to mount the side lamp brackets.

[JTT3]

Well Keith knock me naked and call me spanky, hadn’t even considered that.

[Original Smith]

I'll go along with Keith on his note on special bolts. I've been collecting old style bolts used on our cars for years, and I enjoy using them. I have numerous early steel carriage bolts that were brass plated.

[NealW]

Today I finished installing the Classtiques inner panels on the removable front doors. It was helpful having the unrestored Hayes doors for reference! I was a bit sad finishing up this upholstery work, as after two frame up T restorations, it might have been the last time that I install a T interior. Some hate that job, but I have enjoyed it.

I've got to locate and drill the mounting holes for the passenger side door striker and then I can see what they look like all finished on car.

[KWTownsend]

Nice work, Neal, but you had better get rid of those Phillips head screws before there is a lynching...

[NealW]

Nice work, Neal, but you had better get rid of those Phillips head screws before there is a lynching...

I was wondering if some eagle eye person was going to notice those. There the only ones that the local hardware store had that were the correct pitch and diameter. They will do for now!

[Dmueller1916]

I will have these Foredoors at Hershey, in the Orange Field, spaces OBG 29-31.

[Original Smith]

Another problem we have today, is the unavailability of real authentic 3/8" upholstery nails. They were used on all T's with two man tops. I contacted Auveco years ago, and they said they don't have them any more. Too bad, there is a real need for them. Any ideas?

[KWTownsend]

Larry,
I have a limited supply. how many do you need?

Don,
Those fore-doors are beautiful! The look like they have the nailed-on trim.
What is the number on the bottom of the passenger door?
Would you please give your buyer my contact information?
I'd like to add your buyer to my fore-door database.

: ^ )

[KWTownsend]

Don,
Those fore-doors are beautiful! They look like Beaudette with the nailed-on trim.
What is the number on the underside of the passenger door?
Would you please give your buyer my contact information?
I'd like to add your buyer to my fore-door database.

Larry,
I have a limited supply of 3/8" capped upholstery nails. You'd have to paint them. How many do you need?

: ^ )

Keith

[NealW]

I started this thread showing the unrestored Hayes front doors and the Baudette front doors that I was restoring. I finished them and took a few pictures with them on the car, but not bolted to it. I am not ready to drill into that nice firewall and body to properly install them! At least they're restored and the car is complete with them now.

Neal

[KWTownsend]

Outstanding work on those rough fore-doors!
The original dash was drilled for the brackets.
If you choose to not have the fore-doors attached, I sincerely hope that you did not add a fourth door sill on the driver's side!

They look awesome!

: ^ )

[NealW]

If you choose to not have the fore-doors attached, I sincerely hope that you did not add a fourth door sill on the driver's side!

Thanks Keith. Don't worry, I did not put a door sill on the driver's side!

Any time I give people a ride I make it clear that I do not want them stepping on the door sill even though there is a brass sill on the other door sills. It was a lot of work repairing the worn down corners on those openings!