Door alignment issues

[hammerdog57]

I have a 55 big window cab that i am working on replacing the A piller lower hinge pockets,step rockers and cab corners. Drivers side door fits good. Passenger side has issues. Front lower A piller and cab mount had rust and had sagged. I jacked A piller back up until cowel was level side to side and measuring the same off of frame. Frame is set up level side to side and front to back. With door hung and aligned caracter lines on back of cab are off a good 1/4" With the door lines being higher than the cab. (You would think it would be the reversed) Front of door is slightly behind step rocker and aligned with cowel. Could the door be that far off? (Cab built in La and door from Kansas city) I am thinking that when A piller sagged it pulled the B piller foreward. Has anyone else ran into this problem? How they fixed it? I am out of ideas short of pulling out the porta power.

[hammerdog57]

I tried to upload some pics but was prompted that i needed to have a security token from the administrator?

[vintage_car]

email me the pics I will try and post them for you. vintage_car at yahoo.com

[Russell Ashley]

I think if the door gaps are even and the front and rear of the door is parallel to the cab opening the quarter inch could be within the specs allowed when these trucks were built. You might have to do some surgery on the body line on the cab to make it perfect.

[OrrieG]

Russell is right, these truck new usually did NOT have doors that aligned perfectly because of welding issues on the cab and the fact they were a work truck. As long as the door closed the driver was usually happy. You can usually get the sides OR top and bottom equal, and maybe one other side even but very seldom are all 4 right. I'm not anal enough to worry about it, I never noticed any big problems before and am not ambitious enough to shave or add to the edges to get the gaps just right. I'll be happy if the doors stay shut and do not rattle like they did before.

[hammerdog57]

I am beginning to think alot of the problem is in the door to cowel alingement. With door flush with cowel, door almost touches cab driprail front and back with 3/16" gag in middle of door. If i drop door 1/8" below cowel and drop A piller 1/4" door fits pretty good. Other option is to shim back cab mount to make up some of the difference. (Cab is not real ridged with step rocker not being welded in yet.Not a option i want to do since I am trying to keep cab level with bed) I would like to here other options before i resort to this.

[hammerdog57]

Originally Posted by vintage_car

email me the pics I will try and post them for you. vintage_car at yahoo.com

Pics sent.

[vintage_car]

pics...

[dicer]

Wow thats almost a perfect fitting task force door. The doors and how they close are not the high points of these trucks.

[hammerdog57]

Originally Posted by dicer

Wow thats almost a perfect fitting task force door. The doors and how they close are not the high points of these trucks.

Pictures are decieving. Door latch is maxed out on adjustment and pulls door down to latch.

[55metalmonkey]

I'm having/ had much the same issue with mine (1 done 1 to go), the only real difference is that I had to rebuild and re-skin the lower half of my doors so they would be slightly different than an original virgin door, the only way I got mine anywhere close to what I see as a good gap was to rebuild the hinge so it is fairly snug (new hinges would have been better) then set the door in the opening and loosened off the hinge bolts so I could adjust the door in the pocket. Then I temporarily shimmed with small wood wedges around the inside so that the gap was as close to perfect as I could get. It took a while and a few tries to learn how the door would sag once the wedges were removed. It also took 2-3 times of removing the hinges and filing the elongated hole so that I could get the hinge bolts to sit where they needed to. The gap was still crap BTW but much better and the door sat higher where the front corner of the door meets the edge of the cowl but that will have to be fixed with a little filler I also had to add a couple of panel shims to the upper hinge in an effort to tilt the top edge of the door back. the next step I did was to take the worst part of the gaps and tack in 1/8 or 3/32 welding rod on the edge for the larger gaps and grind where it is too tight then capping the ground spot with mig tacks and grind flush, this is the add & shave steps that OrrieG eluded to. It was a massive PITA to do and in hind sight hardly worth it but the whole point of my truck project is to teach my kid how things can be done, overall it does fit nice, now I just have to get the other side to match
Keep in mind that this is possibly the hardest, labor intensive and most anal way to do it, others around here might have a bit more experience with easier ways to get the same results

I have seen a few posts on the subject but I'm not sure if it's on this forum or possibly on another I read once in a while, when I get more time I'll see if I can find it (if your interested) I would post a few pics of my result but my camera crapped out and my project is on hold for a couple weeks (bath room renos to keep wife happy)

[hammerdog57]

I have another door i am going to try this weekend. Hopefully it will fit better.

[mbgmike]

Good Luck, Doors take much more time than any other body part on a car or truck. like Orrie said about the doors staying shut. I rode in these trucks when I was little. Several times I was grabbed on turns when I was falling out. No kid seats back then

[Kim57]

Looking at your pics the door does fit a lot better than how mine fit.
I removed the drip rail which enhanced the problems even further.
I spent days adding and removing metal from both the cab and doors to get something I'm fairly happy with.
It takes time but you can get them to look nice.
Kim

[hammerdog57]

Originally Posted by Kim57

Looking at your pics the door does fit a lot better than how mine fit.
I removed the drip rail which enhanced the problems even further.
I spent days adding and removing metal from both the cab and doors to get something I'm fairly happy with.
It takes time but you can get them to look nice.
Kim

Did you modify the caracter lines on rear of cab? If so pics? If you look close the top caracter line is off a 1/8" more than door latch line. Door latch line would be easy to fix with a little filler, the top one a lot of work.

[Kim57]

Originally Posted by hammerdog57

Did you modify the caracter lines on rear of cab? If so pics? If you look close the top caracter line is off a 1/8" more than door latch line. Door latch line would be easy to fix with a little filler, the top one a lot of work.

Here's a link to my build thread.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=283107
Starting on page 9 is where you can see what I had to do to my doors to get the gaps to look decent.
I think you will find that you may have to compromise on some of the problems these trucks had from the factory.
Some of the character lines on mine weren't the greatest but I was able to make them work. My biggest problem was the drivers door. The line in the middle of the door was a real problem to get to line up with the front fender and the rear cab. I literally spent days on and off getting them work.
Kim