I just measured mine 27 3/8 at top and belt line 26 3/4 at bottom so thats not way off. I also measured the width at the top of the B pillar 51 3/4 outside edge to outside edge.I Measured width at the bottom of the Upright/Jam where it attaches to the subrail. Front is 36 1/2 and the rear is 41 5/16 these are inside to inside edges hope that makes sense
This is turning out to be a big pain in the balls!!!! Lots of great advice just dont know where to start!
The car must not be channeled as much in the back as it is in the front. Even though your measurements are consistent with a stock door opening, the rear belt line is too high. I bet if you hold a framing square in the opening it won't fit 90* correctly.
Ratty55 If it doesnt go 90* then what is that showing on the rear belt line? I dont know alot of the details on the chop. It has a steel floor in it now.....???
perfect timeing for me on this thread...i'm in the same boat as whiteDevil and have been trying to track down the measurements of the stock door opening. One thing that's been unclear to me is are the 28-29 coupe doors are supposed to be flush in the front like the 30 and 31's? mine are overlapped front and back. my doors and top are all just tacked in i don't think the guy who did the chop braced everything properly before the chop and there are no floors....it's just begun to sink in the last week or so that I've got a TON of work ahead of me. Thanks for all the information.
Not sure if there is a wrong way or a right way, but I'm in a no floor situation myself on my 33 and have the firewall/cowl loose (replaced but not yet welded in place). I took the floors out while the car was on the frame since the car/door was not aligned properly anyways. Well, then I took the frame out from under the car since I need to confirm everything is straight on that before I try to mount a body to a crooked frame. So, where I am at now is I have the entire car suspended in air. I have two long, hollow rectangular aluminum beams suspending the car through the front and rear windows down to a support system that I can still roll the car around on. Never done it before, but I know the body needs to align with the doors and the doors with the body so that is where I am starting. What we (the guy that is helping me) did first was create some small bracket like shims. They are about 2" long, 1/2" wide and then off the center, coming perpendicular to the small plate is a narrow piece of metal. Basically created a "T" with a place to weld and another place to hold the diameter for our gaps. The short part of the "T" we inserted between the door and the body where we want to hold the gaps and then tacked the rest of the "T" to the body and the door. Slowly worked all the way around the door, starting with the hinge side of the door until we had the alignment we wanted. Got one door on today and when I have time I will start the other. Do have some clearance issues to deal with at the top of the door. I have many existing brackets made up that are bolted to the inside of the car for future temporary bracing. My plan is to tie some of these together and then porta-power up the roof line (since I have no floor or frame to push off of). One roof line is bent a bit already and needs work anyways. If I can get the roof line the way I want, the rocker area should come together pretty well (I hope) and if not, I can easily work the issues out down in this area. Just lots of thinking about what to move where to get the results you need. Once the body is all tied into the floor and any additional bracing I want installed, then we will remove the "T"s from the doors and hope that it all stays true. Time will tell.
The first thing I would do would be to loosen the hinges. Run a 1/4" rod through all of the door hinges. Lowes and home depot have them in 3' sections. Once you get the hinges aligned you can take that out of the equation...Then the real fun begins. Your body may be racked. You will need to place it exactly level and start trying to figure out where it is out of square.. Good luck....
It looks like your car is just a roller, if it is, maybe it would help if the body was stripped to bare metal, atleast in the door jamb area and above and the first few inches of the cowl and quarters so you can see what's there. Strip the door too and see what is left of the upper hinge mount area and put the hinge back on and do as choppershox suggested. You could also have a local fab shop make a new driprail if you are having trouble finding an origonal, it wouldn't have to be exactly like the stock one. Sorry your having problems with your ride but this thread is what the HAMB is all about, helping each other out, good luck.
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