Do your doors pop & crack when closing?

[RSBob]

My driver's side door has has popped and cracked when closing as long as I've had it. I know something wasn't quite right, but the door opened and closed fine except for the annoying popping sounds.

One fine day, while installing some new driving lights, I opened the driver door and no more "pop" - I knew something had to be wrong now, because the door swung open freely.

Inspecting the door where the door stay was (as in past tense) attached, now showed a fractured piece of sheet metal where the lower bolt attached and a bigger hole where the upper bolt should be. Uh oh!

According to Wayne's 101 projects, this failure is not only quite common, but one of the most common failure points. Unfortunately Wayne was correct.

Wayne has a couple of suggestions, have the area welded back together, which involves removing the door, welding in a cramped, if not next to impossible area, and then painting, etc - $$$$$

His second suggestion was using a couple of reinforcing plates on either side of the sheet metal to keep it intact - a great idea, but I was on a mission to get this done. First I had to bang, hammer, and pry the bent sheet metal - it happened to be a sandwich of two thing pieces - which needed to once again sit next to one another. This took some doing - finally with a large bolt and a couple of pieces of metal with holes, a wrench and socket wrench managed to get everything realigned and mated back together. I then painted all exposed surfaces to help prevent rust.

Not having Wayne's handy dandy plates, I found two big steel washers with small holes to use as reinforcement plates. The washers had to be finessed on the outside of the door - no plates inside - the door stay would have to suffice. Screw all back together, and yowza, the door opens and closes with the stay as Ferry intended. but the door still popped . The popping turned out not to be the sheet metal giving away but an alignment issue. After realigning the door stay - quite as a whisper.

And the moral to the story - even if you aren't hearing nasty popping sounds, do as our host suggests, and inspect where the door stay connects to the door and either prevent future heart ache (body work) by using his reinforcement plates (or big-arsed small holed washers) for a good temp fix.

Gratuitous multi-light look pic...

[PcarPhil]

I've got to do this as well. Needless to say I'm not looking forward to it!

Thanks for the tip of using large washers.

[scottbooth]

Reading your post reminded me that I once did this same trick with the large washers, which held for years, and was still working fine when I eventually installed a set of the reinforcement plates - which also work fine.

You may want to consider replacing the door stay mechanism, though. Mine was pretty rusty and was not working smoothly, which probably was a factor in weakening the metal in the first place. The new ones seem to put a lot less force on the pillar. Just a thought, obviously I don't know the condition of the parts in your car...

Good luck
Scott

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

I replaced my driver's-side door-stay with a Pelican reinforcement kit. Nothing wrong with the door sheetmetal, I just wanted to do it _before_ anything did go wrong.

Now it pops worse than ever. Turns out the replacement kits have too aggressive a hold-open bump on the arm that slides in and out of the door. It should be ground down before installation.

[3.2 CAB]

I have heard of people using the "fender washers" for this application, and a couple of other vehicles well. Hopefully I won't have to do this repair, either way, the kits, or the washers, but I do check to make sure that the guides are lubed and all is well. Doing a weld type repair, then adding the plate kit, does sound like it would be the best way to go, but it is a major PITA to do. I would think that most of us, now know to keep an eye on the door stays and such, but the problem may have been caused by one of the PO that neglected to do proper servicing on them, long before we ever got our hands on the car. Keep an eye on them.

[tobluforu]

Originally Posted by Formerly Steve Wilkinson

I replaced my driver's-side door-stay with a Pelican reinforcement kit. Nothing wrong with the door sheetmetal, I just wanted to do it _before_ anything did go wrong.

Now it pops worse than ever. Turns out the replacement kits have too aggressive a hold-open bump on the arm that slides in and out of the door. It should be ground down before installation.

I installed the same unit on drivers door and it pops and crackles as well. Pass. is OEM and quiet as can be. I will give your idea a shot.

[Long Nose]

I have had the drivers side door stay off so many times!!! That poping sound drives me crazy!!! Passenger side is as quiet as a mouse.

Sheet metal was OK, but I installed the reinforcement kit anyway, still popped and cracked.

So, finally took the thing apart and compared the drivers and passenger sides, and here is what I noticed.

The factory OEM door stay is made of two peices of metal sandwiched together. The ridges which create the "stay" effect when opening and closing are hollow, so I imagine they provide some flex when passing thru the gate.

The replacement door stay is a solid cast peice, so no flexibility, and the ridges are solid, therefore no flexibility. I imagine that this increases the force required to open and close the door, and therefore contributes to the sheet metal failure.

I used an angle grinder and ground down the ridges on the solid door stay, and no more craking and popping. In hindsite, I probably ground off a bit too much, as now there is very little friction at all. If you try this, you don't need to take much material off to fix the popping and cracking.

[Cipotifoso]

I put the kits years ago and both doors still pop and crack as you open and close them. It seems that the sound does not come from the door stay, but rather from where the door stay connects to the tab on the body. As the stay encounters the resistance of the ridges, it causes the pin through the hole at the end of the stay to rattle back and forth in the elongated hole (from years of use) on the body tab. I haven't seen any solution to this and figured that I'll have to either eventually fit some bushings or adapt something off of another make of car to eventually fix.