I have a 33 Chevy coup, and the doors are not in line with the latch side, I have replaced the wood on the hinge side with metal and fastened it to the metal inside body frame I made in lieu of the wood there before. It is solid but the doors sag some, need to be lifted to latch well, and they do latch, but they are not perfect at all! Any ideas?
They are about 1/4 to 3/8ths low of perfect!
Ty, for your help in the past also!
Is the body bolted down solid on the frame? For that fine tuning that body has to be bolted down, not just sitting there and God forbid on saw horses or something. Bending the hinge a little is very do-able. Look at your gaps, if the door is a little down at the back and it's tighter at the top front to the cowl than the bottom you want to bring back the bottom, if the gap is tighter at the bottom than the top at the front you want to bring in the top to raise the rear. Understand? You may want to go straight up by simply raising the whole door, or you may want to bring the bottom back to raise the rear or bring the top forward to raise the rear. Any of these three methods would do the same thing, which one makes the most sense to leave you with the best gaps is the question.
But first be sure that body is bolted down properly. You can even shim the body to the frame to raise the back of the cowl raising the door on many older cars, the bodies aren't that strong and move a LOT. This is without a doubt a perfectly fine way to align a roadster door. With yours I am not so sure, I am thinking it would be a fine way to do it.
Thank you Martinsr, and Killer, for the suggestions. I do have the body fastened down solid, but I haven't shimmed anything like I found in the orginal wood frame. I have a background in housing, and the methods used there for adjusting doors, apply to the car also. I can shim a few places and see what it does, as I didn't weld down any parts. I did this because of the fitting session I knew was coming! Hope I can improve it some but it does close anyhow, except for the passenger door where the original owner got hit by something in 1943 lol. I am the second owner, bought it after he died in 1961. TY, Windy.
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