Door alignment problem

58Apache · Oct 5, 2007

Team,
I am days away from paint, but I just put the passenger door on after years of being off, a new door skin and some rust repairs.

I have an alignment problem, and yes some of it may be my inexperience, but I sure hope that's all it is. I don't need a major problem right now so close to paint!

The problem is 3 corners of the door align just fine, but the bottom rear of the door where it opens takes a dive inside. I have the top aligned just fine, and the front end of the door is aligned just fine.

I even put a 2 foot long level gainst the bottom of the door and it was straight as can be. Until I got cave man on it and tried to bend the door to shape.

Any ideas? I can get a new door if I REALLY need to, and may have an old one around, but I really need to work with this one if I can.

The top door hinge I rebuilt with new bushings. The bottom hinge is brand spanking new!

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

Steve

HalfOunce · Oct 5, 2007

I don't know about anyone else but with the angle of the pix one can't really tell what the gap looks like. Need a straight on shot of the gaps. It also looks like there is no frame around the top of the door aka coupe. So one should set the door gap off of the rocker and quarter panel. It also would not hurt to mock up the front end to be sure to get the door centered unless you measured the gaps before disassembly. Anyway if you get some more pix up where one could see the gaps better at the bottom and the back of the door i'm sure everyone could tell more about what needs to be done. :thumbup: hopefully the door skin isn't crooked

F&J · Oct 5, 2007

I agree on mocking the fenders up first. You just are asking for problems if you dont. Those years of cars were none too great in fit to begin with and I've seen corrections done at the top front fit of the door to get the back fitting correctly. But then the fender needs to come out a little at the top, which MAY through the hood fit way off.

Yes, a complete new door skin rewelded on without constant fitting to the car could be the problem, but you need to try the other panels on before condemning the door repair.

MARTINSR · Oct 5, 2007

Could the top front be out? Without the fender on it is a little hard to check. But if you look right at the top drivers door and see if you can measure (eye ball or with some device like a wire or something) and then see if your passenger side is the same.

You may need to "rob Peter to pay Paul" and loose some "perfect" fit somewhere else to gain a "close" fit there. These doors didn't fit anywhere near perfect when new, this may be at least as good as it was from the factory. If you want it better, you may need to "massage" the doors metal to make it better. If the door skin was installed on the door and it wasn't trial fit during the fitting process, that could be your problem and you are SOL without some serious massaging to get the door "square" again.

Brian

duallybuster · Oct 6, 2007

it's hard to tell in those pics, but is your door latch adjusted properly? That would pull the door in at the rear quater

Door alignment problem

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