door alignment issue

sballard · 05-20-2012, 05:12 PM

Hi all-

I have been restoring the bodywork on my '72 for quite awhile and I am not too far from the end. I finally hit a problem for which I need sage advice.

I replaced the rusty rockers, repaired the left side latch panel, bought a replacement left front fender ($$$!), and bought a used left door. Unfortunately, the used door doesn't align with the rear fender at the latch panel. I need to get the upper part of the door to lean more outboard. Unfortunately, the threated plate where the hinges bolt to the upper front pilar do not have enough lateral outboard movement. I tried enlarging the holes but the problem is that the plate will not move far enough outboard without butting against the outboard edge of the front pilar. My instincts tell me that I can just cut a slot in the pilar, remove the threaded plate, and trim the outboard edge enough to to give the me lateral movement I need, reinstall the plate, and weld it up. Is this reasonable or is there a better solution?

Classic · 05-20-2012, 10:55 PM

O.k. Steve, photos will help a lot, but back to the basics;

Pins are they straight?

Are the bushes worn?

Are the hinges straight

Do you have any shims in behind the hinges

How far out is it?

Is the backing plate on the A pillar free to move?

sballard · 05-21-2012, 04:24 AM

Thanks for the reply Classic.

Answers....

Pins are they straight? - Yes

Are the bushes worn? - Bushes are in good shape

Are the hinges straight? - The hinges on both the door and pilar both appear to be in good shape. I did consider that the ones on the door might be pushed in, but there is no outward appearance of damage and the door, which has a few small dents on the outer surface, looks original.

Do you have any shims in behind the hinges? - I have two shims under the lower hinge to raise the door a bit and align it with the rocker and upper edge. No shims are under the upper hinge.

How far out is it? - I haven't measured it but maybe 3/16" to 1/4" at the top.

Is the backing plate on the A pillar free to move? - Yes

I can get picts tonight if that will help.

Classic · 05-21-2012, 10:02 AM

O.K. Steve, we've got the basics done, sorry about asking what appear to be silly questions.

I take it that you are trying to line this up with the striker removed?

Photos would be great... I spent a long time getting my doors to line up during my resto, as the PO had swapped the hinges, I know that it sounds silly but give it a try, that rear edge is a long way from the hinge point.

I personally love the photo in the early manual which shows how to adjust an early door...... With a gentleman with a large wood drift and a 9lb hammer.

1/4 inch.... We should be able to get that sitting better....

Show us what you replaced on that side to just so we can confirm that you didn't weld in your problem.

Tony

sballard · 05-21-2012, 05:25 PM

OK, here are a few picts. First the door deviation from the top at the latchpost. The door bottom is reasonably close to the rocker.

And the latchpost, rocker,

The hinges that attach to the pilar are identical. The ones attached to the door look identical to the ones from my original door, with the top one closer to the panel than the lower one.

Funny, I remember seeing the image of the guy with the BF hammer and the block of wood too! I've been wondering if that is in my future.

Any advice is appreciated.

Classic · 05-22-2012, 10:53 PM

O.K. Steve that gap looks fairly uniform down the latch panel ( B pillar) have you tried moving the striker out?

Remember that the door seal is rather large. If you look at the manual for the seal gauge from memory it's about 9mm you can pretty much fit it into the seal with the door closed.... What I'm trying to say and doing it poorly, is there's a lot of movement there.

The gaps I aimed for where about 5mm so by the time my car was painted it would come down to 3mm.

The bottom section of the b pillar and through to the rocker originally hand probably 3-5mm of lead feathered out both back and up the rear fender.... It was pretty much the only place on my car that you couldn't see through the filler when I handed it to my painter.

It's hard to tell in the photo but the front fender panel looks strange like it's bent, but it may be just the photo.

With the gap looking pretty much uniform I'd take the striker off and see what line you get... Post a photo of that.

Whith it not matching your lower rocker line we do need to move it in so that you don't end up with a pile of bog on there.

The hinges on the door should be O.K. But the ones on the frame the are movable can be just out compared to one another, hence the big piece of wood.

How does the other side look??

Fitting these doors took me weeks, but considering when I took the car to bare metal it had about an inch of bog on both doors and rockers from the PO's previous paint job.....

By playing around with the hinge locations I ended up with about a credit car thickness worth of filler in the area that I mentioned above.

DanielDudley · 05-22-2012, 11:20 PM

Given what you are working with there, lead does not seem like a bad option. If you can break the welds, I would pull the rear quarter out at the bottom. Weld on studs, and a slide hammer would do that. Top looks right. You should also put the front fender on, and do it all up at once, or you could be pulling hair out later on.

Skeezy way to do it would be to tap the edge of the door out, and fill the depression created by doing so. Again, not so skeezy with a better filler medium.

Take your time now, and you will be rewarded later.

Oh yeah. If this is your first time, you are doing really well.

Fishcop · Fishcop's Garage

The luxury of having no paint on means you can use the wood drift and deadblow hammer technique. Seriously.

diverdan · diverdan's Garage

From the photos it appears that the quarter panel contour is not right. If my eyes are lying the the door could be tweeked by putting A wooden block between the jam and the top of the door and pushing in on the lower corner of the door. That how the body shops do it.

Classic · 05-23-2012, 02:21 PM

When you start playing around with the hinges, mark them so you arn't chasing your tail.

Once I was happy with mine.....and yes I ended up with a drift and a BFH to get them perfect, but I re skinned one door and had to rebuild the entire bottom of the other.

I ended up stamping the back of the hinges LT, LB etc.

sballard · 05-23-2012, 04:14 PM

Thanks everyone for all the comments. For specifics...

Classic:

The gap is not as uniform as it looks in the photos. With the bottom of the door as close as I can get to the rocker panel, the gap at the top of the quarter panel is pretty obvious.

The front fender mounting panel is bent and quasi-repaired. When I stripped the paint off the door and front fender, there was a ton of bondo from a previous fender-bender. I think this was part of my problem as I matched the latch panel to fit the door which might have been out of alignment from the accident. The A pilar looks unscathed but might be a tad askew.

As for bending the hinges with the BF hammer and the block of wood...Do you mean to strike the top hinge from the front while bolted to the pilar to straighten it out? I can see where this would get complicated.

The right side door, fender, and quarter panel look great.

DanielDudley

I agree that the quarter panel may not be quite right. But I think that the problem is most likely near the top half. I've considered breaking it free of the latch panel and trying to bring it in a bit, but that is in the "last resort" category.

I used a Dansk replacement for the rocker panel and the fit was not very good. I've already built it up with lead to match my original door. I think it will need more.

Fishcop:

Just tell me where to hit it! BTW, I've been following your thread for a long time. Great work!

Fishcop · Fishcop's Garage

Thanks for the kind words Steve. Also, don't shy off using a little filler here and there to get things just right... I had to swallow my pride more than once and use filler on my car.

sballard · 05-23-2012, 05:22 PM

Currently, I'm debating whether to apply filler to the obvious places before taking the car to get painted by a pro. I figure that a good painter will prefer to do that themselves.

FPB111 · 05-23-2012, 05:56 PM

How is the alignment with the door post striker off?
It looks like a Targa. Keep in mind that the top door gap will close up when you put it down on the wheels. Find a friend with a Targa and look at the door gap pre and post jacking.

sballard · 05-23-2012, 07:19 PM

The striker plate is on but the door latch isn't. So there isn't any physical connection between the door and the latch post.

I hadn't thought about the Targa issue. I haven't noticed any flex but I am sure it's there. That would certainly affect the front to rear fitment. Would it affect the inboard to outboard alignment as well?

78SCRSMAN · 78SCRSMAN's Garage

Something to add. Not sure if it's been said earlier but you can place a hammer (I use a plastic one) between the top of the door and the jam and push on the lower part of the door. This will basically twist it some. Hope that's clear.
As for the gap at top, you can weld a bead on the edge to close it up some. I did this on my car. There are some photos posted in my thread (bottom of this post) that detail this approach.
These cars were hand made and replacing a door with one from another car would make sense that some fitting is necessary. My car was imported to the US and had to have doors with side impact beams fitted. Neither door fit well and each needed some massaging along with some filler to be perfect.
Hope this helps some.

Porboynz · Porboynz's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by 78SCRSMAN

Something to add. Not sure if it's been said earlier but you can place a hammer (I use a plastic one) between the top of the door and the jam and push on the lower part of the door. This will basically twist it some. Hope that's clear.
As for the gap at top, you can weld a bead on the edge to close it up some. I did this on my car. There are some photos posted in my thread (bottom of this post) that detail this approach.
These cars were hand made and replacing a door with one from another car would make sense that some fitting is necessary. My car was imported to the US and had to have doors with side impact beams fitted. Neither door fit well and each needed some massaging along with some filler to be perfect.
Hope this helps some.

Thats what we did on my 72, same panels changed, basically we put a 4x2 in the door jamb and pushed on the door so it twisted. Same with the hinges, they can be "adjusted" and I do not mean adjusted with the packers or the slotted bolt holes, I mean ADJUSTED. You also need to make sure that the flat area on the top of the door meets with the rear fender nicely, thats the fold line where the chrome strips fix and they need to be lined up when the door is closed. Therefor you may need to consider unstitching the fender from the latch panel at the bottom and moving it out a few mm. Door fitting is an art, but sometimes you need to fairly heavy handed. Its a matter of splitting the gap differences in 3 dimensions all at the same time, no easy feat. Keep working on it, its real nice to get those gaps sorted.

sballard · 05-24-2012, 03:42 AM

The hammer or piece of wood in the door jam trick sounds like the next thing to try.

I am still curious to know how to bend the hinges. I assume that you would do this with a BF hammer with the hinges bolted to the pilar. If I wanted to push the bottom hinge inboard a bit, would I just put a wooden drift between the two eyes and whack it? It seems that whacking the eyelets would knock them out of round. Could you take them off and heat them up with a torch and bend them?

78SCRSMAN · 78SCRSMAN's Garage

I just re-read your original posting. You replaced the latch panel on the left side. THAT is your problem! Before you weld that sucker in, you need to make sure the profile lines up with the door. I did both sides on my car and had to shape the panels quite a bit before welding in place. I'm absolutely sure this is where things went wrong for you. You may be able to get things close with some of the above methods but don't rule out re-welding the outer edge of that panel.

EDIT: here's how I would attack this... first get the front of the door lined up where you want it and I would avoid bending hinges if poss. Next work on the back of the door.

ratpiper71T · 05-24-2012, 07:26 AM

I haven't done this yet, but my impressions were it it the HINGE post or panel that the hinges are attached to that need the BFH treatment not the hinges(am I wrong on this?) I would use the BFH and the drift to push the bottom of the hinge panel toward the back of the car and the top forward- toward the front. It looks as though some are commenting on the gap rather than the unflushness of the door and rear fender top sheet- which is what looks to be out of spec on the pics.