I have a friend that does all the local Ford dealers body work has told me about a silent recall that Ford will honor should you complain.
The main doors(both driver and passenger) will crack.In the window opening, right near the bottom rear of this opening the steel skin of the door has a point where the lip changes width.Its hidden behind the rubber seals and obviously tough to explain.
I cannot post pics but if you have a door that has a crack take it to the dealer and demand a free repair.
Hes surprised mine hasnt done it yet.He then changed his opinion cause its a 99 with only 17K miles on it now but in the last year he has fixed 20+ Ford F-150s with this cracking.

 

this is from a while back.. it's worse now.

on my 2000 lightning.

 

Surprised at what? I had a 2000 with 16,000 on it and both doors were cracked..........do a search on here and you'll come up with at least 10,000 words on the subject.

 

My door is cracked and was with less than 20k on it.

I brought this up to the service manager recently and he said there is nothing "he" could do, that I had to contact Ford directly. If there is some kind of recall, silent or otherwise, appearently the word hasn't reached all the dealerships yet.

There are many of us that have the door cracks. There may even be a few who don't know yet.

 

Have any 01's or 02's cracked yet?
My '99 still hasn't cracked.

 

Mine when in today for a no questions asked door crack repair. They said they had seen the cracks before and would fix it no problem. It went much smoother than I had expected so there may be a recall in the works????

 

With the exception of the very minor visual flaw door cracks present, is there any other 'damage' or other problems door cracks can potentially cause? I noticed a minor crack similair to the one posted above on my truck around 60,000 miles. To be completely honest though in my opinion that's the least of my worries. With my truck being black I've got other flaws that have occured over the last 4 years that are a lot more noticeable than that. (I'm not in anyway flaming anyone that thinks it isn't minor just wondered if there more to it than I'm aware of.)

 

For folks like me who live in the rust belt, the cracks provide a surface for corrosion to start, and believe me, once it starts, it ain't gonna stop. I throw a little touch up paint on them every year, but its a losing battle.

Only my '97 has the cracks. My '99 is fine.

 

I was chattin w/him again today. He said that Ford dealers must warranty this DEFECT.Its a known problem and if a particular dealer wont help go to a different one or call ford directly and get your truck fixed.

 

My 2000 has over 63,000 on it and no door crack yet

 

My 2000 had 19,000 miles on it when I had a door crack fixed.

 

The driver's door on my 98 w/45,000 is cracked. I'm going to try for a fix next week. Any advice??

 

His explanation of the fix was to remove the paint all around the crack and weld it.Dunno what type of weld is required but thats how its done.Then behind the same erea a plate is installed for structure.Then refinished and painted.
Im nut sure if the plate is steel and welded or some kind of plastic with a epoxy adhesive.
I will find out more soon.

 

Busamouse,
Its a kit that they install with epoxy as well as welding the crack and grinding it down. The drivers door kit is isuued along with the TSB of 01-2-6 on the door. The part # is FP-1L3Z15202W06 AA CALLED SERVICE KIT FRONT DOOR. They say its a stress crack on the repair issue. I just got my truck back today from being repaired on drivers door and a preventitive kit was put in the pass door(no weld or paint work on that). They weld the crack and epoxy a bracket inside the door behind the area where the crack appears. Once its all dry they prime, sand and repaint. My door was painted perfect and you can`t tell any work was done except for a small speck in the paint by the trim piece.
Best part was my window was making a sound when rolled down and they replaced the window motor and regulator with a new one under warranty . I didn`t even ask for that one.