Metal plate on TD21 Series I door

Hi folks,  While planning how to restore the doors on my TD21 (1960, Series I), I noticed a difference between my car and a few cars online. My car has a painted wood panel covering the door catch, but some TDs and TEs seem to have a thin metal sheet instead. Is there supposed to be a thin metal sheet over the wood that I'm missing, or have people added this after the fact?  For that matter do some cars have the metal panel instead of the wood? Any advice / help would be appreciated, I'm in Canada and there's probably not another TD21 within hundreds or thousands of km to go see! Thanks!  - Todd  Picture of my car with the wood door panel: [url:3ee63qos]https://www.dropbox.com/s/55aiv99i56mzsv3/MyTD21.jpg?dl=0[/url:3ee63qos]  Picture of another TD21 with the metal panel (apologies to whomever's car this is, I hope you don't mind my including the picture here):   [url:3ee63qos]https://www.dropbox.com/s/y20ksozfm2sdufh/OtherTD21.jpg?dl=0[/url:3ee63qos] Posted by tcphelps 18/10/2014 16:05:36

Hello Todd,     Your car should also have the thin aluminium cover plate on the end of the doors, infact there should be a similar one at the front end of the door covering the hinges. If you look at the other photo you can see the aluminium has a return edge about 1/2" wide which secures the leather covered door trim against the door itself, the lip on the edge of the trim at the front of the door can also just be seen in the photo. I'm pretty sure someone like Chris Prince would be able to supply a set.    Cheers,      Andrew Wisdom Posted by tf1695 18/10/2014 17:58:49

On a S1 there should be a metal (highly polished aircraft quality aluminium) cover plates on the leading and trailing internal faces of the door also on the A-post  as shown in your second picture, the B post was also covered with the same trim.I suspect a previous owner has removed the plate on your car to facilitate door closure as the heavy steel skinned wooden framed doors tended to warp and jam as the hinge screws pulled out of the  A-posts. S11 cars onwards had  lighter steel framed doors with aluminium skins with similar decorative facings, at some point the  shiney B-post trim was deleted and the steel cover plate was painted. Posted by Peter Martin 18/10/2014 21:04:18

Thank you both, that's good to know. There are a few pieces I was planning to ask Chris Prince about, looks like there's a couple more to add to the list! Posted by tcphelps 19/10/2014 17:11:37

Hi Alan, what thickness of aluminum sheet did you wind up using for your replacement pieces? Thanks, Todd Posted by tcphelps 17/02/2015 05:53:31

Thanks Alan, actually I was working at a couple of other things and didn't wind up tackling the doors yet. Unfortunately due to some changes in my life I'll probably be forced to sell the car, as otherwise it will wind up having to sit in a cold Alberta (Canada) field for a number of years until I could work on it again. Posted by tcphelps 29/09/2015 22:10:21