This should be painfully obvious, but I can't seem to find the cause to this. When I open the doors on this pickup, they fly open a foot or so. To close the doors, you really have to slam it in order to get past whatever's binding. Once closed, the doors line up fairly well. The body lines look good and it sits well in the opening. I can't find any rub marks on the doors themselves, or the A pillars, or the rocker areas. There's nothing that's obviously binding with metal on metal. The door hinges don't appear to have any slop in them. I'm not looking to restore this. She's a bone stock 50 year old work truck that I want to run around town going to Home Depot or to the dump with. Is this common and possibly a door hinge issue or something else that I'm missing?
hey try adjusting the b pillar latch keeper out just a little they have 4 clutch head screws i n loosen and move forward hope this may help
Do both doors do this? I'm not a true bodyman, but for shits and giggles, I'd try jacking up on the center of the trucks frame to see if this problem changes at all. Possibly the frame is sagging or bowed.I only say this because I'll put a ford ranger on a lift at work and you can barely get the doors open.
rodknocker, You're scaring the hell out of me. I'll have to try that and see what effect it has. It makes sense that it could affect both doors that way. I'll let you know. Thanks
Belair, It pretty much has no door rubber. She's a brute of a work truck that I just got, and options like door rubbers and molding and stuff just isn't there yet. I'm working on fixing those things that I can without spending money at first.
How do the doors close?...are they difficult to close? ...sounds to me like the doors were opened too far at one time and the hinges may be sprung. This can be corrected if this is the case, sometimes you can place a block of wood in the door jam between the hinges and close the door, and by pushing you can tweak those hinges. Worth a try if that seems to be the case. I know this worked for me before on 47-53 Chevy pickups. Good luck.
hey there better than my doors i cant even get my on and shut. My .02 if it shuts completely and it is a work truck.. nothing is binding or bending and it lines up nicely, I would leave it!!! you might possibly be opening up a can 'o' worms. but then again you'll never know until you try.
Thanks Rusty1, Can you feed me a few more details about the wood thing? Like a whole 2x4 or thinner? How much pressure? Would I want to actually try and close the door with the wood in there, or just use it to bend or realign with slightly more pressure each time I tried it and then see if it improves? thanks
2 x 4 and some pressure and they close SOOOO much better now. It's a little scary to put that much pressure on it, but it seemed to do the trick. Thanks for the help
...yeah, you got the rite idea if that's how your doors are working...push a little, remove the wood, check the fit, repeat as necessary.
...hey, glad to hear that idea worked, I've used that trick many times on those old Chevy trucks. Those hinges act as door stops, so if the door gets forced open too far, the hinges get sprung out of wack. Glad to be of some help.
I've noticed if the hinge pockets on the lower hinges have been repaired, sometimes it binds there in the back of the hinge pocket.
This is what I would do. A. Open the door and then lift on the back (this would be the latch end of the door, not the hinge end) and see if you can move the door up and down. If you can move the door up and down, the hinge pins are bad. B. Next, remove the latch on the "B" pillar and then close the door. If the door doesn't fit in the hole correctly, either you have a problem from "A" above or an adjustment problem. These would be where I would start, if both of them are good we can go in another direction.
The Jalopy Journal
