i have a '49 buick and i have been desperately trying to make the doors match up properly to the car when it opens and closes, and so the door latches line up when the door closes. every time i opened my door, the door scratched the front fender and when i closed it, it had to be lifted up. i put a jack under the door and slightly lifted the door after loosening where the hinges bolt to the door, but i spent almost 2 hours trying to get it right, and it still wont line up perfectly. it wants to go too much one way or the other. is there any secrets to making this a little easier??? because im getting irritated with this trial and error prosess.
make sure your front clip doesn t need to be raised alittle, depending on where your doors rub. if your door hinges don t have adjustment in them you have to tweak the the door. ive lifted doors 5" to get 1/4" out of it. if you have to come in on the bottom and out on the top you have to do some wedging. put something in the jamb and start pushing.
The only thing I can think of other than what you are doing is maybe shimming the fender? I had to do that on my 63 Impala once and it solved the door rubbing the fender...just a thought.. oh yeah...you need to post some pics of your ride...I love the 49"s...
would a 49 buick have bushings and door hinge pins ?? or did the pins and bushings come along later ?? worn pins and bushings will cause a door to sag really bad, and usually adjusting the hinges will not get rid of the problem. i may be way off here, because i have no idea what a 49 buick door hinge consists of.
You need to get the door to fit the hole in the body first. On late-40s and early 50s cars, this is going to involve some compromise unless you get out the welder and some files. try to get the character lines & reveals matching from door to body, etc. and work on the gaps at the top and trailing edge of the door. Once you get that good enough to satisfy, adjust the front fender to fit. All cars are different in this, but it's not unusual to need to adjust the fenders by shimming/un-shimming the bolt(s) where the radiator cradle rests on the front spreader of the car's frame. Wooden paint-stirring paddles sawed up into smaller pieces can help hold the door-to body gaps semi-consistent while making adjustments. Sometimes you can even tape them in place. Sometimes you can place them around the opening, loosen the bolts where the hinges attach to the body (Some cars have adjustments on the door side of the hinge, but not typically on GMs of these years.) and have someone hold the door shut - paint sticks holding the up/down & fore/aft movement - and climb into the car and tighten the bolts from there. If your Buick is like my Chevy, you pretty much have to take the front fender completely off to adjust the door, as the door hinge bolts are on the outside of the cowl, and it's near impossible to get a wrench in there between the cowl and fender.
Actually, you really need to rebuild the door hinges FIRST. Then remove one of the latches, and adjust the door to match the quarter panel (since the quarter is NOT adjustable!) Then match the door to the rocker panel. Then adjust the fender to match the door. Shims, adjustments to the hinge bolts, oblonging the hinge bolt holes are all good starts. Only use a jack to move the pillar if absolutely necessary of if you KNOW the pillar is out. Put the latch in last, and adjust it for easy opening/closing.
Oh, yeah, and the older the car is, the worse the door gaps usually are. Mid 50's ford esp. Don't expect the gaps, or the planes of the sheet metal to be perfect. You will have to make them so, if you want to. Grinding down door edges, or welding 1/8 welding rod to them is a normal practice if you want perfect alignment!
Also....if the door won't fit the opening in the correct "plane" then sometimes you have to twist the door to fit. A piece of 2 x 4 in the opening where the door goes in too far, and then push hard on the part that sticks out too far is sometimes necessary. In the "old days" some of the customizers and coachbuilders welded in threaded rod and turnbuckles to get the door right!
hahaha i need to do some of this too, i forgot about the 2x4 trick, i need to go out and do that one to mine right now!
I talked to Bo and he didn't know them things opened. We just keep going through the winders. Signed, Luke Duke
im trying to post pics of the hinges and door so you can see what this set up is. ill also post a few pics of the ride for those that were interested in seeing the 49. so i got the doors to fit right finally. i had to get some sleep and let the irritation go away and start fresh on it this morning. so what i ended up finding was the best way to get it straight was to loosen one hinge at a time, take a hammer and punch to the hinge and move the hinge where it was connected to the door. i had to **** the door back and forth and do alittle bit of bending. i still had the jacks underneath the door with some up pressure on the door to keep the hight of the doors in place and also give a reference of where they were before. this took a few million more times loosening and tightening them and closing the door to see where it needed to be ajusted, but eventually they got closer and closer and soon they ended up in a pretty good place. the doors fit fine in the hole of the car, and although the fender to door ratio isnt completely flat and flush on the outside, at least now they fit right on the inside and close good. and they dont rub anymore. till next time...
My dad used to work at a Chevy agency in the Fifties- told me a story about visiting a plant one time. Apparently, one of the last guys to see a car before it got shipped would check all the doors to see if they worked properly. If they did, he'd send the car on it's way, if not, he'd pick up his 2X4, lay it against the offending door, pick up his 4lb mallet and "adjust it" until the door fit/worked properly. Said he watched about 10-15 cars get "adjusted" before the shock wore off and his group moved on with the tour...
As a final adjustment when I worked in a body shop we would have a mess of rags all bundled up into a ball with duct tape as "the shell". If a door or decklid needed a little tweaking we would close the door/decklid with the bundle of rags in the "low" spot to tweak that body part. It actually worked pretty good seeing that there was no damage to the paint and such.
Good job. Don't get frustrated. It takes doing it a couple of times a week for a couple of years before you get okay at it. It can be hard as hell, and a mixture of art and science. Looking good! Wil Sakowski www.sakowskimotors.com OPEN HOUSE APRIL 19TH <center> </center>
i thought i had it perfect, but i noticed that after taking the door latches off on my drivers side door it didnt close perfect. the door latches on the buick channel it into place, and when they were off, the door came up just a quarter inch too high, thus wanting to s****e the paint on the back top corner. back to work on it. i definately dont feel as bad, considering everyone else has shared my pain in this area. its crazy how something of such a small detail can be such a big deal. i think i might try this your taped rag trick too.
I think I tried every trick mentioned above and it still took what seemed like all day to get my doors on right. Did I say right? what I meant was acceptable compromise! Its a pain and I even had a very experienced body man helping me.
if you buy a total POS car that is pieced together you can adjust with a torch, welder, hammer, & make the car fit perfect. if you have a nice car like the buick pictured you cant or dont want to wail on it with a board, hammer, weld or cut door/fender gap. you adjust it as good as you can as close as you can & go with it. a friend of mine runs a body shop & he needed a body man, ran an ad & had several apply. he said sure they can all straighten a dent but lets see them align a door & fender if they want to impress me.
good tips. one more... have the hinges snug, and do your adjusting with a hammer on the hinge... use a block of wood or a punch or something. say the back needs to go up. mark the position on the hinge and then you'll see how much it has moved, and you have a reference point to return to if your adjustment didn't do what you thought last but not least... I did an old sunbeam alpine. had the doors off to paint the jambs. spent 2 hours getting the first door right. so I eyeballed the second door, snugged up the hinge bolts. shut the door and it was perfect. .. so dumb luck is a part of the mix too.
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