Trying to get the doors swinging right on our '34 cab, they are a least an inch low at the B pillar. Have shimmed the body quite a bit under the A pillar and pried up on the bottom of the door as much as I feel comfortable but they keep drooping down. Any help? Thanks-
Is the gap at the front consistent? That's where you start. Are the hinges solid with no looseness, and pins that don't wiggle? Remove the alignment dovetail until you get the doors to swing perfectly, then reinstall at the correct height.
Slop in the pins can be fixed by reaming the pin holes bigger and installing oversized pins available at most good repro parts vendors. Slop between the hinge and the body is removed by replacing the attachment screws, or fixing weak and cracked body parts. Sounds like you need to stick your head in there and find out what the actual problem is, before you try to fix the problem on the back edge of the door. 32-34 truck doors are notorious for messed up hinges. They really took a beating back in the day.
Doesn't take a bunch of slop in the hinge to drop a door 1 inch in the rear. Sent from my SM-J320V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
We rebuilt all the attachment points in the doors as they were toast, put new screws in the hinges (didn't want to wait to order repro ones so we tapped them to a standard thread and bought some at the hardware store). I will make sure everything is tight and probably have to rebuild the hinges and go from there. How tall of a shim under the A pillar did the factory use? I do have the dovetails and all latches and everything out of the way. Thanks for the advise!
Maybe your wood blocks under the body are not made correctly? Maybe your frame is bent? Maybe your floor is bent?
The frame is one we built (that doesn't mean it's not bent - but I don't think so) No wood blocks we have just been shimming it up with washers for the time being to get the doors to fit better, once I get an idea of how tall that needs to be I will build a better/more permanent spacer. Thanks
I'll take a stab at this.... Shim the mount hole that is furthest forward in the cab (not the cowl foot) to the height you want it to be over the frame. Now, shim the A pillar mount hole (the second hole back) to where the rear of the cab is up in the air over the frame a couple of inches maybe? Install your rear mount bolts through the cab and crank them down till the door is even. Check the distance from A pillar to frame, and B pillar to frame. Play with the front shim thickness until A and B match at the height you want it to be over the frame. Then shim the rear, and other mounts to that height.
It’s a very common problem that I’ve encountered with any 32-34’ cab I’ve done work to. A lot of times the sheet metal ear/flange in the bottom of the B pillar that is riveted to the subframe is torn or loose. This plays a large part in a cab “racking”. I’ve had instances so bad that I made a sturdy tripod and tacked it to the subframe and took a porta power off of the top to a board that spans between the top of the A pillars and pushed it till things lined up.
Well I've re-visited how we shimmed the A pillars and it looked like we could go some more so I built a spacer for the drivers side and it fit great. The shim ended up being about 1 3/16" tall, every thing looked good. Went to the pass. side and had to make a spacer about a 1 7/8" tall and the door fit good. Problem is now there is a noticeable list towards the drivers side and the whole cab is up in the front and running down hill towards the back. Glad I can get the doors to fit but now need to figure out where the twist/bend, whatever is coming from. This is a channeled cab on a custom rect. tube frame. Thanks for the ideas so far, I will keep plugging away at it!
Well, you didn't mention that it was a channeled cab. That presents an entirely different foundation and list of things that could be wrong. I'd say you first have to confirm the cab is level and square to the world and wasn't racked somewhere in the channeling process or the floor/body/subframe was welded in wonky. Pull the cab. Make sure the frame is level/square. Then place the body and start measuring and using a level and plumb bobs hung from the rafters. If you have one of those small Craftsman laser levels you may be able to put that into play "shooting" the cab.
How did you channel it so that it needs 1-1/4 to 2" shims??? The A and B pillars should land on the frame with the doors shut and The cowl's forward most point should be up just about 1/8".
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