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Tricks to installing Doors

L

Lee DeRamus saoca0404

I have an old NAPA dealership in town here. I have been able to get various thickness brass shim stock from him. Also he was able to supply point grease. Most of the points that are modern made, wear down very rapidly. I have tried other types of lubricant on the point cam inside the distributor, and nothing seems to work except this. Here, he has to order it from Memphis, Tn.
so to avoid paying a lot for a special order, he will order a tube for me or others when he places a large order. It is about $8.00 a tube, but it is about the size of a tube of toothpaste. One tube will last forever.
 

H One-Twenty

Donation Time
Rob,

I feel your pain! I have been 'trial fitting' my doors over the last month. Like yours my car is in primer and I want to get the fit perfect before I paint

At first, I also thought that the car, door or hinge must be out of true somewhere so I tried shims. However, through sheer persistence I now have one door fitting perfectly.. without any shims. I have spent many hours trying to get the alignment right on this one door alone.

To finally get it right I ended up putting the door on the car but leaving the hinge screws on the door and A post loose, but just tight enough that the door would stay in place and not move freely. I then closed the door and used a screwdriver and soft mallet (.. a bit crude, I know) to lever/push/pull the door up/down in/out back/forward until I got the best fit I could. I then fully tightened the screws and checked again for correct alignment.. which had inevitably shifted slightly. It was an 'iterative' process, I'd just try the same technique again and again till I had it just right when the screws were fully tight.

I got the best results by not trying to get it right all in one day. I seemed to get on a lot better when I would just get it as good as I could, leave it, then coming back to it the next night and fettling it a little more. Gradually I got the fit better and better. I am now very happy with the result. I just have to get the other side done now :(

Good luck, it CAN be done!
Stuart

P.S. What is the name of the colour of your blue alpine? I am trying to decide on which colour to paint my SIV, I have always really admired your car.
 

Ken Ellis

Donation Time
Congrats on the door fit. I've played with mine some, but they get worse instead of better.

I've been toying with the idea of making special screws for the door hinges -- screws with the standard head and thread, but with a hex profile on the 'first end thru the hole'... so the hex end will still fit through the standard hole, but one could tighten it from the inside of the door, once you removed the interior panel. That way, you install 'loose', and then adjust/shim/hammer/curse for good 3-dimensional fit. Then, (with the interior door panel off, window up) you reach in and tighten each screw counterclockwise, securing the hing/door alignment. Then you can safely open the door to fully tighten the screws, and with any luck, it won't shift. The thing I don't know is if you can get to the inside of the body's door pillar to do the same thing on the body. It would seem that doing the door/hinge interface would help, but being able to do both would really help. (It's likely that shims or hinge-pounding would still be required to some extent.)

Or am I nuts?

Go ahead.

Ken
 

H One-Twenty

Donation Time
Great idea. I know you can get your hand into the inside of the A pillar to get at the back (front?) of the screws. I've been in there to retrieve the steel plate, the one the screws screw into which drops out of place and falls into the sill! (this only happened once or twice during the 573 times I've taken off/put on the door)

By the way, my Craftsman electric impact gun, 1/4 drive socket extension and jumbo size screwdriver bit are now my number one favourite tools ever after this door fitting escapade!
 

Ken Ellis

Donation Time
H120 wrote:
"I've been in there to retrieve the steel plate, the one the screws screw into which drops out of place and falls into the sill!"

Looks like I should add a couple nice healthy magnets to the shopping list.

Ken
 

Chuck Ingram

Donation Time
Great idea. I know you can get your hand into the inside of the A pillar to get at the back (front?) of the screws. I've been in there to retrieve the steel plate, the one the screws screw into which drops out of place and falls into the sill! (this only happened once or twice during the 573 times I've taken off/put on the door)

By the way, my Craftsman electric impact gun, 1/4 drive socket extension and jumbo size screwdriver bit are now my number one favourite tools ever after this door fitting escapade!

Amazing what the impact gun can do.That was the only way I could undo those screws when i first started on sunbeams
 

61Alpine

Silver Level Sponsor
After I finally got the doors where I wanted them. I drilled a 1/8" hole in each hinge, and into the body. Just big enough to insert a 16penny nail.

Tonight I had my door on and off 3 time. Insert the nail and the alignment is spot on.

I am taking them off and on so I can weld some onto a few spots where the gap is more than I would like. Remember these doors did not come from this car so the fit is not perfect but I hope to make it perfect.
 

Alpine66

Donation Time
Normal Door gap?

As long as the discussion is on joys of adjusting doors, what is the norm for a gap? Both of the doors on my recently purchased 66 have 1/2" gap on front and back of each door.

Seems kind of big to me, is that a normal gap?
James
 

Bill Blue

Platinum Level Sponsor
As long as the discussion is on joys of adjusting doors, what is the norm for a gap? Both of the doors on my recently purchased 66 have 1/2" gap on front and back of each door.

Seems kind of big to me, is that a normal gap?
James

A 1/2" gap is on the large size, but it is what it is, not a whole lot you can do about it. Most just try to get the same gap front and rear, top to bottom and live with it.

As Barry Knight used to say, "Its an Alpine, your results may vary". It probably should be changed that to, "Its an Alpine, your results will vary".

Bill
 

George Coleman

Gold Level Sponsor
Just some input here, you have to remember that at the factory they were given about 3 hours to hang doors on these cars and they made the opening fit the door!! If you look at the front of the door jamm they used lead to close the gap,there is alot of lead in our cars!:eek:
 

Alpine66

Donation Time
Bill and George, Thanks for the info and the laughs.
Building up on the front jam is better and easier than what I was considering, which was to use all metal filler on the leading edge of the door itself to build up an 1/8 or so and close the gap at least a bit.

Maybe I'll just drive fast everywhere and no one will notice the gaps.....
 

66Tiger

Donation Time
Don't feel too bad, currently there are a pair of red Tigers on Ebay, one appears to have no gap and the other looks like the door is open (twisted?) on the bottom edge..interesting enough both are driver side issues...and both are restored.

Paul
 

Bill Blue

Platinum Level Sponsor
James, speaking of building up. What is your paint situation?

Normal painting will do considerable to close the gaps. When I "did" my car, I figured I could just paint the doors and put them on, as they were supposedly the original doors. Bad Idea. If I were to do it over again, I would trial fit the doors when the car was ready for color coat, mark the door location remove, then paint. This will give you an opportunity to build up the edges more if needed. But keep in mind, even at this point, the finished gaps will be visibly narrower.

Any way you do it, its a whole lot of work.

Bill
 

Alpine66

Donation Time
Thats a good question Bill, I haven't taken the doors off to see how big the build up is. Amen to "whole lot of work".
The gap is fairly uniform front to back although a bit more in the front, and the striker and dovetail seem to fit closely, so I will probably not do much with adjustment.

If I get held up finding new drivetrain(looking for a ranger v6 5 speed), may fiddle with building it up. Or maybe Ill weld the doors shut the ala general lee .....
 

bernd_st

Bronze Level Sponsor
According to old Pressed Steel factory drawings the door gap was specified 5/32 " (3.97mm) all around. Since this was valid for bare metal you may deduct a certain amount for paint layer thickness.

cheers

Bernd
 

Bill Blue

Platinum Level Sponsor
According to old Pressed Steel factory drawings the door gap was specified 5/32 " (3.97mm) all around. Since this was valid for bare metal you may deduct a certain amount for paint layer thickness.

cheers

Bernd

That is funny, funny, funny. 5/32" would give a finished gap of less than 1/8"! Probably closer to 1/16". I would guess the number of Alpines leaving the factory with that door gap (both fenders) is zero.

Bil
 

Chuck Ingram

Donation Time
That is funny, funny, funny. 5/32" would give a finished gap of less than 1/8"! Probably closer to 1/16". I would guess the number of Alpines leaving the factory with that door gap (both fenders) is zero.

Bil

Bill
That is or must be the new math.
4/32's to us old timers is still 1/8th
So then 5/32's should be a wee bit bigger than 1/8th would you not agree.
 

puff4

Platinum Level Sponsor
Chuck, I think he meant the 'finished gap', meaning 5/32" less the amount of primer and paint, which could indeed be less than 1/8"... if the primer and paint on each piece is around 1/32", then we're looking at a finished gap of 3/32". Or am I reading this wrong?

"Since this was valid for bare metal you may deduct a certain amount for paint layer thickness."
 

Ken Ellis

Donation Time
Bill's post was a year and a quarter ago... I dredged it up as part of a search for another thread...
The current thread is called "Door Adjustment."
Ken
 

Alpine 1789

SAOCA President
Diamond Level Sponsor
I'm bring this back up to the top, as I am trying to align the doors on my S3. Unfortunately, the PO had removed them when he was working on the car and they are close, but not close enough. I am starting on the passenger side. I can get it close with the hinges loose, but the lower left corner of the door seems to stick out a bit no matter what I do. However, the doors do have the inside weather strip on them, which does make contact with the car while I am adjusting them. It seems like adjusting the doors with this on would be a good idea, but it also feels like I could get that bottom edge in place without it.

Any recommendations on this: weather strip on or off?
 
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