hello everyone i have got a door alignment issue maybe someone could me with. my doors open and close just fine. but the bottom of the door seems to protrude about an 1/8". you can see in the pictures. the front looks like it will be fixed when i replace the lower cowl but the back i dont really know where to go. from the inside rear there is a small 1/8" gap at the bottom that i can see daylight thru. is this normal? does a piece of weatherstripping take care of this or is their a bigger underlying problem? thanks- Robert
Gap Looks like the door needs lifting up a fraction, whats the gap at the top of the window frame like?
My passenger door does the same thing. Like it needs to be tweeked diagonally. The factories were spitting these things our as fast as they could, and fit and finish was way down on the list. On the 53, the door skin is actually a little low compared to the inside skin. When lined up with the body lines, the striker plate is touching. These things need a little massaging. You could make up the gap by adjusting the lower rear cab corner, by bringing it out a bit.
Your door fit better than mine, especially after I weatherstripped em. I think they are correct about 1953 components fitting poorly. You should see my hood! Heck, it is a truck after all. Good luck.
i think i got ahead of myself when i posted this question. now the door and pretty much the whole side are gone, so i will address this again when the time comes around. i hope you all can tweak your doors in the right places so you can tell me where to tweak mine. thanks, Robert
Door tweaking! I ran into the same issues when putting my 54 truck together.......lower rear edge of doors just wouldn't adjust and fit tight. Not wanting to take a chance on scoring up my fresh paint I took the truck to a friends body shop. He's been in the business for 40 years...having worked for/with his Dad. I explained the problem....he eyeballed it and invited me to sit in his office.....I couldn't watch him make the adjustment. By the time I settled into a chair and opened the local newspaper, he called me out.....the doors fitted perfectly and he had a big grin on his face and in his hand he had a red shop rag and a little piece of 2X4. The 2x4 wrapped in the shop rag went at the top of the door frame and he just gave the bottom of the door a little push......going a little past where he thought it should go. This sprang the door just enough to draw the bottom in. No cracks or chips in the paint. Now I'm not suggesting that this is the absolute correct way to overcome the fitment issue....just that I saw it work on my truck. I'd suggest that a person use some restraint and not try to do it all at once. Maybe a couple lighter pushes to make sure you don't "over-tweak" and wind up with having to use the block on the lower edge to get the top to fit. I was a bit amazed at how quickly and easily the door flexed so anyone using this technique should bear this in mind. Dave
Hmmm - a 2x4? I don't have any paint on yet - maybe I will give that a try... The bottom rear of my door is out by about 1/4 inch.
Tools I prefer to use a heavy gauge rubber hose or similar, it leaves less bruising but more internal...................oh! wait.......we are not on the same page are we, oops sorry
