I shouldn't have done the hinges. the hinges changed everything. The doors fit after the cab work, I welded my pillars to fit the doors. So I know I had GREAT lines. Yea, but I will confess, when I did the hinges,…… I found out one had dropped a pin. I had no idea it dropped a pin. I knew my springs were missing that is why I did the hinges. 3 hinges were 90 % ok, one was toast. But, both doors are out a lot.
Here is that learning curve. *note* do hinges before cab work and setting door pillars.
I have got a lot of die grinding to do to open holes and shimming behind hinges.
Just created 20 hours work for myself. I am laughing about it. I was so careful about the cab work and the doors. I had the doors off and on 100 times checking. *note* do the hinges before the cab work.
Before you go do anything crazy stop and look this over. Moving the hinges using the three bolts that hold it to the cowl do VERY little on these trucks.
One of the first things you want to do is open the door all the way. Look into the center of the hinge way at the back where the hinge pin is, use a flash light so you can see back in there. There's a hole at the back of that hinge, a hole in the hinge and in the mount that it bolts to. Most every car with these style hinges I know of has a bolt back there, a 55 Chevy car has two bolts back in there. Here is a 55 Chevy sedan at the shop. Check out the bolts way inside.
The hinge pin, where the door pivots is WAY up in there by those bolts. So moving that part of the hinge moves the door in and out WAY, WAY more than moving the hinge at the three bolts in the door jamb.
For some reason I have never seen one of these trucks with bolts up there, though they have the holes? Often when you look in there you will see that the holes don't even line up. Loosen the three bolts on the hinge to A pillar and move that portion in there with a large screw driver or something lining up the holes and put a bolt in it. This alone may get the door where it needs to be. If not, open the hole up with a file or rotary file so you can pry on the that portion moving the front of the hinge (thus moving the PIN) out and tighten up the bolt. When you do this you will see that it hardly moves the area where the three bolts go at all, and it won't make it funky or anything, just tighten those three bolts back up and wham, you are good to go.
But give that a try before you go off anywhere else, this is simply alignment and requires no mods.
Here is the hinge in one of my doors.
Brian