Seal and the Door Works!

For those of you that are married, you might relate to this dilemma - Mr. Right (or Mrs. Right) can get something to work, but you never can!  You know, how the car makes that noise and he never hears it, so therefore, you must be crazy and need to deal with the problem!  This has been the case for our door handle on the Ambassador since we took it out of the junyard!  Don't get me wrong, Mr. Right did "work" on it and tune it up, but for some reason, he has the magic touch and can open and shut the door with ease, and more importantly, knows the trick to lock it.  When it works so easily for him, and myself and the kids keep slamming the door (why do slamming doors never bother children but drive parents crazy?) and it won't stay shut, it gets frustrating for all involved.  I can't tell you how many times we got yelled at for not closing, slamming, or not locking the door!

Well, Mr. Right found a way to really fix the problem (our problem, not his!).  He rasied the door latch by adding an extra piece of metal under the original latch.  It's the shiny piece under the old catch.  Like a miracle, we now have a door that shuts with ease, and hopefully the kids will remember not to slam the door.

Another part of the door that was looking pretty bad was the door seal.  Here is the before picture, as you can see, there wasn't much to it.

In theory, changing a door seal isn't a lot of work, but it was just one of those things that just didn't done in the rush to get the Ambassador down the road last year.  Of course, after awhile, we were quite tired of it too, and just wanted to enjoy.  The adhesive was pretty badly stuck onto the door, but Mr. Right found that paint thinner took it off easily.

I don't know if you can see the results (check the picture with the door lock for a close up.)  Such small things make me happy!  While Mr. Right was working with the door, he realized that it was bent and not shutting near the bottom edge very well.  Upon further inspection, several rows of rivets were missing along the bottom edge.  He replaced those, and found that the door was a lot more sturdy than before!  He's afraid the wood inside the door, holding the structure together, may be rotted out, but for now, this improves the overall use of the door.