Door alignment

[NEVERENOUGH]

I replaced the door hinge pins on my 82 yesterday and I can not for life of me get the doors to align. I am binding with the front fender and it seems like nothing I do is helping. The pins were the worst I have seen and I am not sure if maybe the hinges are tweaked. Any ideas or help is appreciated.

[Sodell]

Were they binding before hand? Is it binding on the bottom?

[NEVERENOUGH]

No they were not binding beforehand. They are binding in the middle of the door and fender. It looks like the previous owner had installed some washers between the door and hinge. I tried to remove those and see if it helped but still no luck. I am planning on messing with it a little more today.

[NEVERENOUGH]

Does anybody have any ideas. It does seem to be binding more towards the bottom of the door and fender thanks for the help.

[Sodell]

Mine did the same thing, I had to put shims behind the bottom one it is twisted a bit. If its that bad I would replace the hinges.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by NEVERENOUGH

Does anybody have any ideas. It does seem to be binding more towards the bottom of the door and fender thanks for the help.

Well...I've done about 3.5 million of these but I'm not sure I can explain it.

Set the door so that it fits in the A pillar/roof/cab back opening.

After that mess with the fender. Gap between the rear of the fender and the front of the door should be about 1/4".

The top of the fender attaches at the A pillar with one vertical bolt and one horizontal bolt inside the door.

The bottom of the fender attaches with one horizontal bolt shot outboard in the dogleg portion between the wheel opening and door.

Each of these areas can be shimmed to fit. If the shims have a small tab and are open at one end then they are probably original (not previous owner installed). Shim the up/down to match the feature line on the door; shim the in/out to clear the door as it swings.

BTW, we didn't actually fit the fenders at the bottom - we just took a bit wooden stick (like a 4x4 with padding on it) and stuck it in the opening and ERRRK bent it to fit.

One per minute, 8 hours per day, 285 days per year, for 8 years....

K

[dieseldawg142]

wow! thats impressive, almost 100 000 doors!
that would explain those splinters i picked up installing my fender flares!

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by NEVERENOUGH

Does anybody have any ideas. It does seem to be binding more towards the bottom of the door and fender thanks for the help.

So - based on this - you've got to go either forward with the bottom of the fender (to increase the fore/aft gap - you can loosen the bolt and pry forward with a thin piece of wood) or you've got to go outboard with the bottom of the fender (by shimming...or bending - your choice ).

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by dieseldawg142

wow! thats impressive, almost 100 000 doors!
that would explain those splinters i picked up installing my fender flares!

I should add: we would tape those shims together in a little "packet" and run that shim pack on every truck - whether it needed it or not.

After a half a day or so the foreman at the end of the line would call and say something gracious like: "SEYMORE!! YOU A-HOLE!! ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT THESE TRUCKS?!? EVERY F-IN ONE OF THEM IS RUNNING HIGH!! TAKE SOME SHIMS OUT BEFORE I COME UP THERE AND MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER HIRED ON HERE!!"

So - we'd take a shim out of our little pack and run those until we got the next phone call. That would apply for the top rear vertical bolt, top rear horizontal bolt, and the bottom bolt (both left and right side). So basically there were six ways to mess up every truck (the front of the fender is constrained by the radiator support; there is no adjustment there).

K

[gramps77]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

I should add: we would tape those shims together in a little "packet" and run that shim pack on every truck - whether it needed it or not.

After a half a day or so the foreman at the end of the line would call and say something gracious like: "SEYMORE!! YOU A-HOLE!! ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT THESE TRUCKS?!? EVERY F-IN ONE OF THEM IS RUNNING HIGH!! TAKE SOME SHIMS OUT BEFORE I COME UP THERE AND MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER HIRED ON HERE!!"

So - we'd take a shim out of our little pack and run those until we got the next phone call. That would apply for the top rear vertical bolt, top rear horizontal bolt, and the bottom bolt (both left and right side). So basically there were six ways to mess up every truck (the front of the fender is constrained by the radiator support; there is no adjustment there).

K

So if there is no adjustment at the radiator support, I have bigger problems than I thought. My NOS fender is WAY wide at the front and I had finally given up trying to get it to fit. Its still wide and looks silly if you look from the front. I figured out the door gap situation and did a little similar with some wood to bend it out

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by gramps77

So if there is no adjustment at the radiator support, I have bigger problems than I thought. My NOS fender is WAY wide at the front and I had finally given up trying to get it to fit. Its still wide and looks silly if you look from the front.

Yep. I can't imagine why it would be so wide.

The only thing I can think of would be to take a section of the radiator support out and re-weld ... or ... we used to bash the front corner of the fender with a rubber hammer (with a concave face). I'm not sure that would move it enough to make a difference. And, of course, you run the risk of denting the show surface of the fender.

K

[NEVERENOUGH]

Man thanks for all the info. I have been putting tile in the kitchen for the wife so I have only been on the truck a little here and there. Nothing I have done seems to work so I am going to order up a set of hinges. Looking at the hinges on the truck you can see that they are twisted pretty bad. Again your help is greatly appreciated thank you.

[LONGHAIR]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

we would tape those shims together in a little "packet" and run that shim pack on every truck - whether it needed it or not.

After a half a day or so the foreman at the end of the line would call and say something gracious like: "SEYMORE!! YOU A-HOLE!! ARE YOU EVEN LOOKING AT THESE TRUCKS?!? EVERY F-IN ONE OF THEM IS RUNNING HIGH!! TAKE SOME SHIMS OUT BEFORE I COME UP THERE AND MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER HIRED ON HERE!!"

So - we'd take a shim out of our little pack and run those until we got the next phone call.

It's just too bad that I cannot express my true opinion about this.....but it would be against the rules. (A couple of them)

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by LONGHAIR

It's just too bad that I cannot express my true opinion about this.....but it would be against the rules. (A couple of them)

I'd like to hear it - if you can be "moderator friendly".

Perhaps I can shed some light on the production process.

K

[LONGHAIR]

I really can't....

But I will say that I have seen some of the assembly line processes in real time during a tour. My machine shop class went down the line watching Mustangs and Capris in '79. I'm sure that it is considerably different than today. Far less computer/wiring/sensors etc. were used back then. What really stunned me though was a the end of the line. When they were about to roll off, away from the line pulling them along, a worker would get in, start it up and drive it to an alignment rack were they would check the specs and aim the headlights. There were 3 or 4 of these racks to keep things rolling along. There was also a trouble shooting station for the ones that would not start. The shocking thing was that they had one not start while we were there..... You know what they did? Push start it with the one coming from behind. It so happens that this one started, so they just drove it to the alignment rack like it was nothing?
I could not believe that they did that, knowing that we were there....Doing it on a regular basis is bad enough, but with a tour group watching?

The following year we went to see Camaros and Firebirds, not hugely different, but no fail to starts.

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by LONGHAIR

I really can't....

But I will say that I have seen some of the assembly line processes in real time during a tour. My machine shop class went down the line watching Mustangs and Capris in '79. I'm sure that it is considerably different than today. Far less computer/wiring/sensors etc. were used back then. What really stunned me though was a the end of the line. When they were about to roll off, away from the line pulling them along, a worker would get in, start it up and drive it to an alignment rack were they would check the specs and aim the headlights. There were 3 or 4 of these racks to keep things rolling along. There was also a trouble shooting station for the ones that would not start. The shocking thing was that they had one not start while we were there..... You know what they did? Push start it with the one coming from behind. It so happens that this one started, so they just drove it to the alignment rack like it was nothing?
I could not believe that they did that, knowing that we were there....Doing it on a regular basis is bad enough, but with a tour group watching?

The following year we went to see Camaros and Firebirds, not hugely different, but no fail to starts.

Interesting.

We had a similar process, in terms of vehicle start, alignment racks and short line repairs. But - we had a little "mule" that we used to push "deadheads" off the end of the line - not the vehicle behind them.

"No starts" are a big deal from a management perspective, because they affect the "direct run rate" numbers by which the plant management is judged. We (engineering) get severely chastised when we are building pre production units and they fail to start (even when it is not our fault).

The other thing I had hoped to convey, in a somewhat humorous way, was what a foul environment it was. I was a 19 year old kid, boss over 38 hourly employees, some of whom were old enough to be my grandfather and some of whom were only a few years older than me. It was like being in the army. Fortunately, this was the beginning of the end of the rough & tumble "bull of the woods" style of management and I like to think I was on the leading edge of ushering in more fair and humane treatment of the hourly workers.

K

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by LONGHAIR

I'm sure that it is considerably different than today.

- and - I'm starting my 35 year in GM engineering and assembly and I'm pretty amazed at how similar the processes are from when I started.

Based on my studies, particularly of mid 60's GM processes, I really don't think they've changed too much since the depression era, which is when we overhauled the production methods from when vehicles were built statically in individual stalls.

K

[INSIDIOUS '86]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Yep. I can't imagine why it would be so wide.

The only thing I can think of would be to take a section of the radiator support out and re-weld ... or ... we used to bash the front corner of the fender with a rubber hammer (with a concave face). I'm not sure that would move it enough to make a difference. And, of course, you run the risk of denting the show surface of the fender.

K

So that's what was going on? I thought my truck had gotten the front end pinched or something but that was just you guys haha
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