The panel alignment on my GS is really starting to bug me... The previous owner must have removed them to paint the car and the gaps are terrible, too tight in some places and to wide in others. The doors appear to be 1/8" low so they do not line up with the rear quarter body lines. Where should I start? With the door and work forward? Is it possible to align the door with the front fender still attached? The panels are all original so I should be able to get them back to at least factory gaps I would think o No: This may be somthing I save for next winter if it is too big of a project.
mike start with the door to quarter first,the quarter isnt going any where. if the gap is good ,the doors are just too low you can adjust this without taking fenders off.just loosen the bolts where the hinge attaches to the door and you should be able to move it enough up or down, or in or out.once youve got this gap youll have to loosen and shim and move around the fenders till they line up. hope this helps,jeff
Mike...they make a device that holds the door in place so you can align it correctly. Believe me, without it it's a pain in the butt. Also, you'll need to remove the front fenders to get to the hinge bolts.
I would also check your hinges for wear if they are the originals. Since you will be doing alignment, now would be the time to redo the hinges.
I have done panel alignment before and it does take alot of trial and error. The last time I did it (on a '68 GS Coupe I used to own) I had the luxury of pulling the whole front of the car off and started with getting the doors right. That was great because I did not have to worry about the paint since the car was going to get painted anyway. I did align the doors on that car without a fixture to hold them and it was a real pain in the ......... The hinges are good, no play on them when you pull up on them from the back, no sag. I was just wondering if there was some easy, quick, magic way to get this done. This sounds like a good winter project since I don't have much free time to play with it and I know once I start pulling panels I am going to want to detail and replace worn parts... The bad panel gaps have bugged me since I bought this car 8 years ago and I hate the way they make the car look. Thanks for the tips... :TU:
Good advice on here, generally the doors get aligned to the quarters at the aft end, that should set the front part of the door, and you align the fenders to the front of the doors and with some luck the hood will line up. But its never that easy. You need to compensate for all the various tolerances and it can be a real bitch. If the doors are sagging at the back and hinges are good, is the gap at the bottom of the door even?? It should be...if the bottom gap tapers down at the back end and the hinges are good, you will need to get to the forward door hinge bolts (remove fenders) so you can pivot the door on the hinges to get the proper alignment. From there you can do fenders and hood. If that lower gap is even, it means the entire door is sitting low, you can move it up but now it won't match the fender. Will the quarter contour still match? They might have had problems (door or opening not square, etc) and split the difference. But remember, the gaps on these old cars were NEVER great. I find myself trying to make them perfect because it is now expected (thanks mr barrett jackson) that they be so, and it causes more problems! later Tim
Mike, I've spent many hours trying to make mine look good. The truth is that these cars were made in an age that unlike the cars of today things were done the hard way. They didn't have computer aided design 30 years ago. Many of our cars were welded a little crooked from the factory......they weren't perfect to start with. You have to find a happy medium.......that is, when you make one adjustment it throws off another one. If it's off a little on one end and a little on the other end, sometimes you have to settle for that or else it's off a lot on one end when the other is OK. uzzled: When you move the doors (if your windows don't have a frame like mine) then you have to re-adjust them a little too. And remember, the quarter window re-acts with the door window. The doors are really the starting point of everything.......you must make those right at the start or else everything you do after that is a waste of time. Unless you are a professional, if you can get your car even close to perfect you're just lucky. Look closely at some other cars you see at car shows.....they're not perfect either. The ones that are close were prolly professionally done. And if you had any panels replaced or repaired they will never be exactly like they were when they were new. As long as your gaps are within the specs in the body manual, and nothing sticks out like a sore thumb, consider it OK because you'll only drive yourself crazy trying to fix it. :eek2: One important thing here.....make sure your doors are completely assembled (door panels, window motors, etc.) when you do this adjustment.......or else the missing weight will throw things off and when you put the car back together your doors will hang a little lower. :bglasses:
What is this door tool that you're talking about? Trial and error is getting me nowhere, in fact, I'm just making this worse! Is the ideal situation really a fenders-off scenario? Is there a sure fire way to do it with the fenders on? Any help here would be great...I've already chipped the finish once, and am darn scared to get in there and have it happen again (despite the layers of masking tape!)
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=40386 There is one from Harbor Freight. Aligning doors is a 2 man operation since one has to hold it steady while the other tightens/loosens the hinge screws.
Rather than start a new thread on this subject, I'm bouncing this to the top as I have similar issues/questions. I'm at the point of installing and aligning the trunk/fenders/hood/doors on my 69 (hinges are good) after a repaint. I have new weatherstripping ready to install. My guess is that it's easier to align/tweak everything before weatherstripping than it is after. What does everybody do at this point?
When aligning the doors it helps to remove the latch pin. The door should shut correctly without the pin. I would recommend putting the weatherstripping on first because it changes the depth the door closes. You want the alignment right when its at the right depth. I doubt you can reach the lower hinge bolts with the fender on. I have 3 tricks for aligning panels. 1) As others have stated begin with the doors. This is best done on a relatively level surface. Open the door until it rests in the first detent. Set a tape measure on the ground and extend the tape until it is 2 inches above the bottom of the door. Open and close the door a few times and ensure it returns to the same height on the first detent. Place a jack under the door with a rag to protect the paint and raise the jack until it moves the door 1 an inch up your tape measure. Now loosen the correct hinge bolts until the door shifts. Tighten the bolts and check the fit. If it's still too low raise the door an inch and a quarter, loosen and tighten the bolts and check. By using the tape measure and returning to the same spot repeatedly you can creep up on the right adjustment. If you want to move the top hinge more than the bottom hinge a few taps with a plastic hammer while the bolts are loose will encourage that hinge to move more than the other. 2) If you drill a couple of small holes through the fender and inner fender and core support. If you place drill bits in those holes they'll guide the fender back to where it started. You can remove the bits and begin adjusting the fender bit by bit. 3) Take some measurements using the fender and some masking tape on a nearby surface. You can use those measurements to creep up on the right adjustment. This way you can make a change and then check its effect on the other dimensions. Even with the tricks its a slow somewhat frustrating process. But using measurements you can at least be assured your making progress. John
