F100 Doors

Does anyone have experience fitting the doors to a 1956 F100 cab.
I think I heard the the factory fitted each one individually. My doors are straight. But the gap ****s on the ***** side. Please help from someone that really knows somthing. UGOTPK

 

any adjustment on the door hinge? hinge to door that is. never really had too much difficulty with F100 doors, but then again the shop I worked at had done hundreds of them.

 

Thanks. The hindge ajustment is done. The door is not the same shape as the truck opening. I think I am looking for someone that knows what they did at the factory to correct the fit problem.

 

My 56 doors are still fitting good, but I measured a different set I have, and the right doors have a 1/16th difference at the bottom, and the lefts were the same.

Eric

 

when i did mine, the p***enger side was also more off than the driver. not only the gaps but the contour of the door. i twisted the doors and leaded and shaved the gaps to get em fit right.

 

bbt

 

If you have 56 Ford truck factory shop m**** go to page 400 and it shows you a typical door bending tool [I have never seen one,but a person could make one] and it tells how to use it. I tried to get picture or scan it and it didn't work. I know this is an old thread but maybe it will help

 

i see the problem: FORD TRUCK! buy a chevy and problem solved! i have owned a few 56's and the door never fit that great. just tell the ***** not to worry about it!

 

On my `55 i had a severe gap at the back of the door, prefect allignment and gap at the front, i ended up cutting out the edge of the door opening on the cab, one slice on the outside approx 1/2 inch from the edge, the other cut inside the door pillar, i then moved that section to achieve my gap and welded in a strip along the cab quarter, its a lot of work but it was the only way to fix my problem.

 

My p***. door had a nice gap at the front, and a wedge-shaped gap at the back(gap was good at the top, and got wider towards the bottom. I placed a block of wood between the jambs, and hooked a tie down on the rear cab mount, and wrapped it around the sheet metal, and hooked it to the front lower hinge mount. I tightened the tie down and was able to tighten the gap so that the wedge shape was unnoticeable. If your gap is even all the way down, I think the only solution would be the tried and true method of welding on some welding rod on the back edge of the door and grinding it down to fit the opening. I think the only fitting the factory did, was to tweak the doors in/out by putting a block of wood in the door jamb and pushing on the top of the door, to get the top to go in/bottom to go out.

 

Before you try to hang replacement doors on to a cab and/or body you have to make sure the frame and car is straight, preferably by installing new mounts and bolts. Once you know the cab is straight and aligned then you can attempt to hang the doors.
On the last two vehicles I tried to replace the doors on, a '59 F100 and a '40 Buick 4dr sdn, the replacement doors would not fit no matter how much we tried to adjust them. We finally found that the body's were out of alignment from very old collisions. Once the body's were straightened up, the doors fell into place.
Old time body men were very good at bending things to fit... Ya got to keep in mind that all body work use to be done on a flat rate basis. and since they were only dealing with a "car" not someones pride and joy, the job was done as quickly and cheaply as possible.

 

I think you've discovered the "secret" to ill fitting doors on Ford trucks. It's very likely NOT the doors-especially given the processes used to manufacture them. (Hard tooling, one set, all done at one location). It's the cabs that are the problem. Welded up out of many pieces on a multiplicity of mobile welding fixtures in several ***embly plants each of which had it's own philosophy re tooling maintenance and quality control. The variables in cab construction were unimaginable. And this was not just a Ford problem. One thing that helped in later years was the one piece door opening frame but even it could be forced into a warp by a bad ***embly fixture.

 

On my '55, I had to grind the door edge back. Once they were ground back, I welded the "lip" back together and ground the gap to fit the cab. I tried multiple sets of doors and none of them fit like another.

 

your right on this one, i have measured several doors and there within 1/16, if i measured both door openings at the same location on each side i was out 1/4 inch, too bad i didn`t take pics of this fix, i thought it was only my truck!!

 

This was another problem i had, body lines did not lign up, the back cab panel stuck out past the door in this area, what i did is (kinda hard to explain) sliced the back of cab door chanel along the opening, this cut then was enougn to push the panel in and lign up with the door,welded it up and done