I have a Brookville bodies 32 roadster who's passenger door needs adjustment. How do you guys go about adjusting em? On mine, the bottom front corner needs to come out a tad and the rear of the door needs to come upwards. Any tips? Thanx !
Shims help you do the job. A shim under the cowl near the door opening will lift the rear of the door thus making the lower rise and tuck in some. Lest that's theory. Trial and error. Place the shims at the body bolt locations.
You should not have to shim the body."IF IT HAS SHIMS" I'm assuming the doors have already fit. A lot of this stuff can't be answered on a thread. Trust me, I'm a body man. Take the car by a body shop. Someone with a good reputation. " Real hot rods don't have fenders "
What? All roadsters need shims. I just went thru this on my '32. It needed shims in weird places too and it was all trial and error. I'd like to see a pic of what the door looks like.
If the front door gap is tight against the cowl you need to tweek the hinges (or where the hinges attatch) and in doing that it would raise the back of the door. so what i would do was basically grab the door and yank up on it! sounds crewed but thats what it takes. once the door gap is fit to the cowl then you need to think about shimming the body, if the door is hanging in the back i usually tighten up the cowl band bolts and that can help raise the back of the door, worst case scenario is that you have to shim the A pillar and then retighten the cowl band bolts, its basically a very time consuming sitution where you basically just need to experiment with things! and make sure you tighten all the bolts, simply tightening one bolt that wasnt tight when you mocked it up before can throw it all off! i built a b-ville 32 roadster and even when people would lean on the doors it would thro them out of alignment, the stamping steel they use isnt near as good as henrys chrome vanadium steel.
Line the front edge of the door to the cowl, if it doesn't line up good there you'll have to do some tweaking in the hinge area. Then line the body up to the rear of the doors. shimming the middle of the body can make the gaps bow open. Shimming the rear can close them up. If the doors are out at the bottom sounds like they need to twist in at the bottom with some muscle. It all just takes time..
I was assuming the doors already fit!! -- I did not say {no shims}on all cars, did I!!! read the THREAD. " Real hot rods don't have fenders "
Frank, 3 main areas, pretty much as titus says cowl band bolt. hinges wrench on doors up or down. basically you just need to pick on what is the worst 'fit' and go from there. as stated, usually start with door fit to cowl. also being the anal bastard you are, Henry doors weren't that good anyway, so near enough will do you but wont' win you an AMBR.
Thanx for the heads up fellas - ill scope it out tomorrow. Flatoz - I gotta adjust this door as it dont shut properly is is prone to popping open. Prob b/c of the mondo HP/TA from the 21 stud FH. Ill try out the advice Titus, thanx
Here's a good Model A site on this: http://www.abarnyard.com/workshop/door-2.htm Note that the '32 adds in a true adjustment up front at the cowl band allowing smooth and continuous adjustability of cowl angle and also that the hood should be part of the process...the hood is in effect a template to get grill vertical then align front of cowl to the same vertical. Some issues may involve pulling in or pushing out on the front of the quarter to adjust its curvature, sort of a correction of sag.
In attempting to align an A roadster, stand where the gearshift is, and imagine a quarter ($.25 piece) stacked up on each side at 1. cowl/hood, 2. door/cowl hinge joint, 3. door latch/front of quarter panel, 4. Rear fender bead start point.
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