Tried to hang the drivers door last night. Mucked about for ages in the shed.

Let me just say that they are not exactly easy to hang and the gap seems to be a bit random all round

Have other members noticed the same?

The good news bit: I have a 1/4" drive socket set that I rarely use but it did the job brilliantly - fitted into all the tight areas

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Regards,

Mike
"He who dies with the most toys wins."

yes I had some dramas with door gaps. I could get them even down the handle side, and fairly good up the hinge side but I found they both closed up a bit around where the window started.


dont worry to much, chances are they will sag and then the door skin will end up distorting when you tighten them up again............

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Yep, had this problem many a time, particularly when the door didn't come from the car.
When I did the doors on my own car, I set the gaps before painting then pulled the doors off and painted everything. Every bolt-on panel came from a different car. The doors and the body needed a fair amount of 'massaging' to get the gaps nice all round... Almost like the body was made on a friday arvo, and the doors by a hung-over apprentice on Monday!!

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How can it be rusty when it's covered in so much oil?

This is gana sound bad coming from me (the resident panel beater) but I still find them hard some times too. Some times what i do to make it easy is I will use packers in the gaps so that its the same gap top to bottom or side to side.

Some times you need to average it out as well (basically hang it so that if there are inconsistancies, they sort of blend out or are less easy to notice).

The other thing that will help you, get a trolley jack with a few folded rags on it to support the door while its open (just while the nuts are loose). You can buy special door stands but a jack is just as effective.

One other thing, so long as the gaps on each edge are the same the whole way alone their edge its ok. Even if one edge is 5mm and another is 8mm or what ever. What the eye is more likely to notice is if the gap closes up at one end.

Anyway, I hope that helps a little... if your still stuck let everyone know

I think one of the other problems is that the hinges are rooted. They are all sloppy so regardless of what I do on the gap, when I take the spacers out the door drops 10mm+!

What's the best: new hinges or repair them with bushes?

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Regards,

Mike
"He who dies with the most toys wins."

Repair them usually, but if there is heaps of slop, the wear in the middle bit will be bigger than the new bush is (5/16" OD, and the pin is 1/4").

Usually it's the driver's door that suffers most.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.