C1 Door adjustment

[Dave Christensen]

I am trying to align the doors on my 56. I have started with the driver's side door and cannot get it to fit right. The top of the door sits out too far and the bottom is recessed in about 1/4". The door fits fine up and down, front and back, all around. Before it was painted my body guy had the doors flush with the body.

There is some adjustment in where the hinges sit in the door jamb. I have gone as far as I can there and still have a problem.

Is it possible that the top and bottom hinges are not the same and I have them reversed?

Do some doors need shims to get them flush?

Any other suggestions?

thanks for your help.

Dave Christensen

[John M.]

Re: C1 Door adjustment

Dave, To adjust the door in the direction that you indicate, You will need to loosen the two phillips screws that hold the hinges to the pillar and loosen the two bolts that hold the hinge back inside the pillar. After you loosen he top hinge then push the hinge in to the center of the car and re-tighten the screws and bolts. This should bring the top of the door in and push the bottom out. It may take several passes until you get it perfect. John

[Dave Christensen]

Re: C1 Door adjustment

John,
I have done this and moved the hinges as far as they will go. The door is still recessed by 1/4" at the bottom and sticking out at the top.

Is there any other adjustment?

thanks
Dave Christensen

[James F.]

Re: C1 Door adjustment

Dave,
I found out that aligning my '56 doors was MUCH easier without the weatherstrop applied. Hopefully your w/s has not been applied. I cannot expand onJohn's answer. His answer contains the method of adjustment for your problem. Possibly the hinges could have been reversed. I don't know if it's possible to do this or not. I marked mine before I disassembled the doors, that wasn't an issue. My drivers door cpative tapped plates in the door sill had the captive metal retainers bent open. The line workers needed more adjustment apparently. Regards,

[John M.]

Re: C1 Door adjustment

Dave, There is no difference between top and bottom hinges. If you have adjusted the top hinge as far as it will go, try moving the bottom hinge in the opposite direction. Beyond that, I am at a loss to tell you why the door won't align. I suppose you could switch hinges and see if the problem gets any beter. Maybe you hinges are bent which can throw the adjustment off. I presume that you have replaced the bushings in the hinges, although that will not affect this area of door align ment very much. When my 60 was adjusted correctly, the hinge cover plates were completely against the edge of the recess in the pillar and took a pretty good whack with the palm of my hand to get it there. Goog luck, John

[Richard P.]

Re: C1 Door adjustment

Dave,
As a follow up to Jim Frakes' response I would suspect the auxiliary weather stripping as the cause.My experience has been that the weatherstripping does not compress enough to allow the door to keep its alignment as you have described.After trying several times to align the door I removed the weatherstripping to achieve and hold proper alignment. Just my $.02
Regards,
Rick

[Dave Christensen]

Re: C1 Door adjustment

I do not have the weatherstrip installed yet.

I switched the upper and lower hinges and can now get the door aligned. At least on my car there is a difference between the upper and lower hinges. (Since there is an undetectable difference between the two, there is a 90% probability that I will put them in wrong!)

Thanks again for everyone's help on this.

Dave Christensen