Door Alignment

[Josh]

Due to the condition of the doors that were previously on my car and my desire to go back to stainless (painted and full of bondo) I purchased two new doors. I am having a heck of a time aligning them properly.

I have adjusted through the hinges (two bolts on the door front and back) and the striker pins. I have dremeled out the infill panels to allow full movement of the pins. However, I am still having a heck of a time.

The issue is similar for both doors, with the passenger side more severe. The door is too close to the rear striker and miles from the front one. The rear of the door is also farther way from the body than the front one.

I see there are shim stacks that mount to the body under the hinges. Should I start to adjust these? I really do not want to but I also need my doors to close!

[WelmoedJ]

Due to the condition of the doors that were previously on my car and my desire to go back to stainless (painted and full of bondo) I purchased two new doors. I am having a heck of a time aligning them properly.

I have adjusted through the hinges (two bolts on the door front and back) and the striker pins. I have dremeled out the infill panels to allow full movement of the pins. However, I am still having a heck of a time.

The issue is similar for both doors, with the passenger side more severe. The door is too close to the rear striker and miles from the front one. The rear of the door is also farther way from the body than the front one.

I see there are shim stacks that mount to the body under the hinges. Should I start to adjust these? I really do not want to but I also need my doors to close!


The cages that hold the nut of the striker pins also can be adjusted.
They however can only be accessed when the stainless body panels are partially disconnected.
The bolts of the front cages are also bolted to the underbody and can be reached from the inside footwells.
The bolts of the rear cages are a bit harder to access: I haven't done the rear ones, but I presume access is also behind the rear inside (speaker) panels.

[Josh]

I do not think the adjustment of the striker cages is an issue. The door is very close to the infill panel on both sides.

I do appreciate the information though!

[Josh]

Well I was thinking about the striker cage movement a little afterwards, and the infill panels must move. I will try and move the rear striker and infill panel backwards, and push the rear hinge-door bolts inboard. This may solve the problem!

[David T]

Well I was thinking about the striker cage movement a little afterwards, and the infill panels must move. I will try and move the rear striker and infill panel backwards, and push the rear hinge-door bolts inboard. This may solve the problem!

To adjust the doors fore-and-aft (towards the front or rear) you need to loosen the hinges where they attach to the body. You may not have to add or remove shims (that changes the height of the top of the door when it is closed). Adjusting the doors is a very labor intensive and time consuming trial-and-error process. You may never get it perfect, just the best compromise of fit. Be aware that you are NOT aligning the doors to the gaps and fit of the other panels. You are adjusting the doors to get the best fit to the fiberglass body. Once you achieve that you adjust the other panels to the doors for fit and gap. Remove the striker pins and get the doors to close nicely without them. Once you think you have it, put the pins back in and adjust them one at a time. The doors should not rub on the fiberglass (or the screws for the latch).

[Josh]

Thanks for the input David. I am well aware of the effort involved. It does look like the fore-and-aft movement is what I am needing to achieve. I understand the doors must be properly aligned, then the fenders to the doors. I have the striker pin adjustment and adjustment through the hinges to the doors figured. I do not think the shim stacks need to be changed, the height of the door is good. I just am fuzzy with the adjustment of the striker cages and the hinges to the body. I will take my headliner off and see where the door is sitting in relation to the weather stripping. Perhaps with will make it clear if the striker cages or the hinges need to be moved.

A question about the hinge mounting points to the roof box: do these bolts and the captive nuts have a tenancy to rust out? I have a feeling i will snap the hinge bolts when I remove the. Just a feeling though. This would leave me in quite the situation as i could not re-install the doors, and have to repair the roof box.

[Josh]

This door alignment issue has me jumping all over the place! I was carefully inspecting the doors and I have settled on the issue being the hinge mounting to the body (roof cage). The hinges need to be shifted forward as well as shims added to the front hinges. Currently the rear hinges have shims on both the bottoms and sides, effectively giving the doors a "toe in" for lack of a better term. The front hinges have little to no shims at all. My plan is to remove the side shims on the rear and install some bottom shims on the front. Then the very iterative process of getting the shim heights correct...

Am I on the right track?

[delorean928]

Josh, have you been able to adjust your doors? My driver side door needs adjustment. I spent two hours playing with strikers and useless.

[Josh]

Yes I have! Did the drivers side this weekend and prepped the passenger side for next weekend. It was quite the task. Perhaps you can get away with adjusting the door-hinge bolts. These are the bolts that connect to the door on the hinge, not the body. A lot of adjustment in these.

22879

Here is the procedure I worked through, not for the faint of heart. I had to buy new doors as my car was previously painted and hiding many sins.

-Install door. Adjust the door to the best of your abilities through the door-hinge bolts and strikers. From this I assessed that the door needed to be raised on the front and pushed outwards. The rear needed to be lowered and moved inwards. Spend lots of time assessing the current issues with the door alignment, as you will need to reflect back to in during the whole alignment process.

-Remove the torsion bar, door, and strikers. I have got this down to about 30 mins by myself or 15 with another set of hands.

-Remove the hinges. There are two bolts and one nut holding the hinges on and they may be rusted. Use penetrating oil and or heat to remove them if they are being stubborn. I suggest removing the hinges entirely so you can retap the holes and threads, install new hardware, and clean up and paint the roof.

-Assess the location of the shims and if you need to buy any more. The total amount of upward shims (thin ones) you can use is about 4 per hinge, and the amount of outward shims (wide ones) is about 3 per hinge. My shims were all on the rear hinge, so it was obvious I needed to move them to the front one. I made an extra outwards shim and pretty much maxed out the front hinge and removed any shims from the rear. I have other issues that require a new roof box in the distant future, so that is why the front hinges are loaded up. Hopefully yours is not this bad.

-Install the hinges with your first guess of the shim placement. Install the hardware but keep it loose so you can slide the door backwards and forwards.

-Clean up the hinges and make sure the slotted holes are clear and free. for easy movement of the door backwards and forwards.

-Loosen the fenders and remove the infill panels. The striker pin cages have a forward and backward adjustment. I backed mine right off to not impede with the door.

-install the door. Make sure all the bolts are loose for adjustment. do not install the torsion bar. You could install the strut to help a little when opening and closing the door.

-Now, open and close the doors. You are trying to get the door to line up evenly front and back bottom and top with the weather stripping. When the door is closed it must also be level with the rocker panel. Adjustment here is done with the hinges, both at the body mounting point and through the bolts mounting to the door. This involves opening and closing the door many. many times. Shims will need to be added and removed in this step. As you get happy with the placement, start tightening the hinges one at a time. I tightened the body mounts first, then the door mounts.

-Now install the torsion bar.

-Now you can adjust the striker cages. They must hand in the middle of the latch, but not pushing into the far side of it. After this, reinstall the infill panels.

-Finally, install the strikers. This is pretty easy, just approximate their location and almost close the door, paying attention the the latch location to the striker. It needs to be in the arc of the latch for optimal operation. This is also an iterative process, as you have determined.


So the final disclaimer here is these are my experiences with the whole door adjustment process. I am certain there are better ways to do it and I am far from an expert. But I do know my door closes way, way, way better than before. Also, this is the worst case scenario process (short of replacing the roof cage). I think you should start with adjusting the door-hinge mounting. The rear one is easily adjustable, but the front one needs the torsion bar removed to adjust.

Feel free to PM me with any questions or post away here!

[Josh]

Got off the phone this morning with Josh from DPI. He explained the issues I am having are due to failing urethane around the windshield. The windshield is now going to be removed, the roof jacked up, and the windshield re-installed. The windshield plays a critical role in the door alignment, so something else to consider. There should be one outwards shim on the front hinge and three upwards shims on the rear. I loaded mine up on the front and this is not the proper way of aligning the door.

[AirmanPika]

I've been fighting with my door alignment ever since I owned my car. While it s better, it has never been perfect. It was good when my car was painted, but I installed "new" doors once I stripped the paint and realized the old ones had been damaged too much. The new ones came from an 82 (I have an 81) so they are a bit more robust and probably less forgiving of variations. My car was also clearly involved in a passenger side accident at some point in its life so that also may have made perfect alignment impossible. The primary annoyance is that my seals need replaced again even though they were installed 5 years ago due to how the doors are aligned.

[ALEXAKOS]

My turn to fight the dragon!
No matter how I adjust the hinges the door keeps sitting way to back. Unless this is the right way. Haven't tried the front and rear fenders on yet but I suspect the door will be way off the front fender and almost touching the rear.
The front has a 2cm distance
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz135/alex-akos/delo%20resto/1E453365-62A8-4F9C-82E3-08FD29CCFE44_zpskl76xanc.jpg
and the rear only 1 cm
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz135/alex-akos/delo%20resto/363C219B-BE06-4422-B365-D78DBD97BA87_zpsaaviwna7.jpg

Also what came as a surprise, after having installed the new inner door weatherstripping, and have placed the striker pins WAY in there so the door presses the new weather stripping into form (also used silicone spray for better rubber & stainless connection), the lower part of the door has a significant gap.
http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/zz135/alex-akos/delo%20resto/6F8126F6-9C8D-4D62-919B-5DACF40486E7_zpshelbgztx.jpg
I can only suppose this will let water, wind and street noise in.

Any how to's from the Sensei's?

[robvanderveer]

Make the door shut properly first, then align the panels to the door.

[ALEXAKOS]

Make the door shut properly first, then align the panels to the door.

Align the panels? Didn't know those had any room for play. All mounting positions of the panels are fixed. All I can imagine is add spacers of shims. But how do I hide 2 cm?

[robvanderveer]

Dunno. But it is how they did it at the factory.

All depends on the correct position of your door hunges of course.

[Jim D]

I may have missed this but I need to replace a door and wondered if I can do it without removing or releasing the tension on the torsion rod, just removing the hinge bolts. I realize that I will have some alignment issues with the new door and thanks to your posts, I'll have a better idea of how to fix it.

[ALEXAKOS]

I may have missed this but I need to replace a door and wondered if I can do it without removing or releasing the tension on the torsion rod, just removing the hinge bolts. I realize that I will have some alignment issues with the new door and thanks to your posts, I'll have a better idea of how to fix it.

That would be a dream!!!!
Unfortunately you can't loosen any bold without releasing the tension on the rod.

Okay, maybe one bolt Max on the rear hinge.