47-55.1 Door adjustment

[Matt_50]

Today's goal, passenger door alignment. Driver side is just about perfect but passenger is annoying me to no end.

Hinges are rebuilt. I have to slam door to latch tightly.

Facing closed door. Hinges are to my right. Latch to my left.

Top right is too far in. Bottom left is too far out. Bottom right is a little out. Latch is lined up, no need to lift door to close, just slam.

I have loosened and played with everything. No luck. I have not cut any metal or used the grinder at all at this point. I have also not tried to bend the hinges.

[Matt_50]

More pictures.

[leegreen]

New or old door rubbers?

Are the door, cab and rebuilt hinges all original, matches pieces that had good door gaps before you started?

I made the mistake of having 2 cabs worth of hinges all stored in one box, then rebuilding the 'best' ones rather than original matching ones. And installing the door rubber before the alignment was spot on. I lost count of how many times the doors and hinges came off for bending and slot lengthening. Somewhere along that journey my vision of desired level of panel gap became 'not hitting the frame anywhere'.

[Matt_50]

I dont think I mixed them up. Driver side is good. All original. Honestly I don't remember what it looked like before. I'll look through my pictures.

[Matt_50]

When I first bought it. Best picture I could find.

[leegreen]

the before picture looks like a good fit far as I can see.

I'd try removing the striker plate and concentrate on alignment then add back the striker plate to pull the back of the door in as last step.
It looks like you need to go in on bottom hinge and forward on top.

there are some detailed tutorials on the forum / Internet that may be better than my advise. I did lower my standards to fit the doors rather than fit the doors to my standards.

[NorCalGal]

Do you have a picture of how the front edge of the door lines up with the cowl, is it flush or does it stick out?

[Matt_50]

Front edge.

[NorCalGal]

Ok so the bottom of the door needs to move in here’s a video I made to try and help with this problem. It takes very little to move the door a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tq5aiB8s44&t=135s

[Matt_50]

Originally Posted by NorCalGal

Ok so the bottom of the door needs to move in here’s a video I made to try and help with this problem. It takes very little to move the door a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tq5aiB8s44&t=135s

Thats genius!

[Matt_50]

Do both hinges need that treatment or just the bottom?

[NorCalGal]

Depends on if it is sitting flush with the cowl. What this does is move the door in and out. The horizontal and vertical is adjusted with the bolts on the inside of the door where the hinge mounts.

[mr48chev]

Is the cab sitting square and level on the frame with good mounts? If the mounts are sagging a bit the cab may be twisted a tiny bit.

Before I went crazy I would make sure that the frame is sitting square and even distances from the shop floor (side to side) and measure the clearance between the frame rail and the floorboards. If all is good there then I would go on to the next step (s).

[Matt_50]

Originally Posted by NorCalGal

Depends on if it is sitting flush with the cowl. What this does is move the door in and out. The horizontal and vertical is adjusted with the bolts on the inside of the door where the hinge mounts.

After doing some measuring to see if cab is square I think I'll try this out tomorrow. I have a little welder but no torch so this is kinda perfect.

Did I understand you right? Bend the hinge out to move the door in?

And bend the hinge in to move the door out?

[NorCalGal]

Yep, make sure to keep the bending point where my video shows.

[NorCalGal]

It doesn’t take much to move it. You will have to take the door on and off several times to see where your at and which way to go.