VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Body - Sheet Metal, Paint & Wood Yea I know - another door aliement Question

Hi guys .. I'm at a total lost for what to do to get the doors on my 32 4 door to line up. Back doors are fine, slight adjustment maybe, but the front doors are WAY off. Honestly about a whole inch dropped at the top. I've read previous post and tried seemingly everything.
Wood is all new, front A pillars are towards the back as far as i can get them, actually to the point of almost hitting the middle door post. Hinges are tight, wood all lines up with the metal. I've put a 1/4 inch shim under the middle mount "maybe' helped a 1/16 of an inch. i just don't see any play anywhere to get a whole inch of movement. If it was slightly off, yea I can work with that.. but this is driving me crazy. Doors worked okay before, Passenger side was close the Drivers side was off but i was able to pull it up a bit a close the door. Now BOTH front doors are dropping about an inch at the top.
Suggestions HELP!!! I tried to load a couple of pictures, let me know if they're not accessible.
Thanks!~ Don

20200821_114021 by Don Martin, on Flickr

20200821_114048 by Don Martin, on Flickr

The only way you can have that much drop at the rear of the door is to have the top of the "A" pillar too far back. Measure the top and bottom of the door opening and adjust so they fit the measurements of the door at the same level.

Thanks Chipper .. I know something isn't right to have that much of drop, it's just confusing when everything in the cowl area lines up.
Top of the A pillar is a pretty tight fit, not sure how to move it forward, but i'll take a look and see. Appreciate the suggestion!

Quick UPDATE: i was able to move the top of the A pillar forward a little and kick the bottom back which helped a little now from an Inch I have a little over a half inch gap. So I can't move the top any further back and the bottom any further forward due to the notch on the main sill. How can i move it more?
Do any of you 32 owners have a measurement from the front of the main sill to the back of the notch for the A pillar? I know they'll be slightly different but i want to see if my new wood sills have the notch too far forward.

Which is why I don't like making wood for cars unless I have the body on hand.

If it were an option for me, i would have gladly taken it somewhere, but living in the middle of no-where WV, I ordered them from Classic Wood Products in NC..All the body bolt holes lined right up and front and back meet all the metal lines. But these A pillars, seem to be off. They fit in the car good, so guessing it's not the pillars themselves.. guessing. it seems to be the notch in the sills. I'm scared to cut the notch bigger and find out I'm wrong ... sigh.

One good thing about wood is that you can always either cut a little more away or glue on another piece of wood to correct fit and mistakes.

Chipper
I have not had success gluing structural wood back together but I can weld steel back together therefore steel is my material of choice.
Tony

Is the body bolted firmly to the factory frame with a set of shims between the frame and body?

Dave

On the 36 model there is a long screw (like 3 feet long) that runs just below the to top hinge to the bottom of the door on the jam side. By turning that bolt you pick up the bottom of the door on the jam side closing that gap you are talking about. It works great to compensate for that type of problem. Works like the old wooden screen doors on a house. Not sure if this applies to a 32 or not but it is worth the try. You could easily fabricate something to work.

Good Luck
Tom H.

thanks guys for the suggestions. Yes, everything is currently bolted down the the frame with the rubber body mounts in place. I had a shim in the middle body mount but that didn't seem to help, actually made it a little worse, so took it back out.
Also, unfortunately the 32 doesn't have such a bolt or turnbuckle at the A pillar. The only thing it's bolted to is the piece that holds the dashboard. I was able to get the A pillar up into the main sill a little further, but it can't go any higher. i'm going to try and cut the notch slightly and see if that helps ..a little at a time.

The "A" pillar face where the hinges mount should be vertical (at least to the belt rail on a 32 I believe) and can be checked with a carpenters square. Just angel it out parallel to the door opening. If not and the bottom needs to kick back then the notch in the main rail is possibly misplaced and you may need to notch it out further. Also check the door widit at the bottom and at the belt rail as the gaps should be nominally 1/8" and you can check the opening to see if it jives bottom to belt rail.

Great information cabboy .. thanks. I'll check all of that out...

The sheet metal rocker panels will always give you the right spacing for the bottoms of the pillars. If you have the aluminum thresholds, they help you determine the gap of the pillars. You have to account for the pillar covers though. I believe the 32’ 4 dr will have 4 or 5 body mounts on each side. From the front working back, Position 1, the cowl should be bolted down on a hard thin shim, not soft rubber. Position 2 is usually located right around the A pillar and is the important one for lifting the door rears. Use metal shims here as it’s very important. A canvas reinforced shim was originally used on many GM cars but it was much harder to compress than the soft plain rubber mount/shims being sold for mounts. Position 3 is also very important as you pull that one down tight after you shim 2 up. Check the door alignment and adjust shims. Not sure if the Chevy has 4 or 5 mounts but the rear body corner mount plates get bolted down with thin shims like the front. So basically, the front and rear of the car are bolted down with about 1/8” shim max, the the res of the car is moved up or down depending on what you need. You alway have to tighten all mounts when shimming for doors. I have found that sometimes the body needs to be shimmed up at position 4 to allow the rear roof to come up and forward towards the front. I know it doesn’t sound right but I’ve done a few cars now and have seen it help. When shimming your doors, work from front to the rear.

I also see a couple other issues. You do not have your metal toe board supports or the A pillar mounting irons in place. The toe board bottom gets screwed into the main sill and it’s welded at the top. This makes the front body mount rigid. Without the toe board you can have the tops of the A pillars slanting back even when shimming the main sill because of the lack of rigidity. You cannot use a C clamp at position 1 either. It needs a bolt and needs to be tight. The A pillar support iron should be fastened to the pillar first making sure the A pillar is as the correct height. Be cautious of any pre drilled holes in wood from classic. The wood in most cases is good but have not had one pre drilled hole in the correct place on every single piece I’ve purchased from them. I only order wood from them undrilled. It is important the A pillar is mounted to the iron at the correct height. Then the pillar withe the iron attached can be moved in the notch into the needed location then screwed to the main sill. You need to correct the above issues and try again setting the doors.

Ted,
Great catch.

Wish I had keyed in on the fact that the toe board supports were not installed. Without the cowl stabilized and in the proper orientation it will be impossible to properly align the rest of the body and most particularly the doors. Cross measuring the door openings and matching those to the door that is supposed to fit in the opening is critical. Shimming the body can correct minor misalignment but not construction defects.

These (or something like them) are the lower hinge post braces that Ted mentions above. I don't see them in the photo.

Dave

I missed it originally too chipper. Donner , the OP, has another thread about the kick panels and mentioned he had the toe boards out to replace the main sills. I then put two and two together, came back to this thread and looked closer realizing that the toe boards and lower pillar irons were not in place. Thanks for posting that pic steve as I forget what it can be like to be a newbie to these cars and forget to post pictures of what I’m trying to say. The OP needs to get the front sured up correctly and rigid before trying to align the doors. Tightening down position 3 body mount after shimming position 2 is just as important as shimming #2. If you don’t pull the sill down to the chassis, all the shim in the world at #2 won’t correct the misalignment. I don’t know if that’s the case but most don’t realize pretty much every body bolt needs to be tightened down with each attempt at shimming, if not, the affect of the shim is not realized.

wow .. thanks guys that is super information... I'm more of a body guy (body work) than trying to figure out all this geometry with 4 doors. I didn't realize the toe boards brakets where that important .. now i know. I do have the A pillar brackets and was waiting to make sure i had the A pillars at the correct height before attaching them. So ... I started over .. took loose everything and the dashboard cross bar, which helped a lot, that was holding everything too tight and couldn't move anything. I know have the A pillars up into the main sill and the brackets attached, which has got me a lot closer. I'm working on the tow board brackets tonight.
oh .. and the reason for the clamp is because that part of the frame was in bad shape and i had to weld in a section right where the hole was, well my messurements must have been a bit off because the cowl body mount hole didn't line up at all .. so before I drill a new hole i want to make sure everything else is lined up.. then I'll drill a new hole in the frame.

One thing .. I don't have a body mount at the A pillar .. just the Cowl, just behind the middle door post and the rear. there is a bolt that holds the rear kickup board to the main sill but it's not attached to the body so to speak. I did stick two small body shims under the A pillar area and that help more .. so i'm getting close .. i don't mind a little adjustment here and there, but being so far out of wack was killing my brain.
I'll update in a day or so ... now that i have all this information... cannot thank you enough!!!

Quick update.. sorry it's taken loner than expected to get this work done. I've replaced the A pillar brackets and toe board brackets and move the A pillar as much as it can and still meet the metal. Added two metal shims under the passenger side and three under the drivers side and the front doors align almost perfect .. BUT, now the rear doors are off. not by a lot, only about 3/16". I can see that my rear body pillars are about 3/16" closer at the top of the opening than the bottom ..not sure how to correct this. As I stated before, I even have the 1932 repair manual.. but I don't have 4 body bolts, i only have three. ( the repair manual looks like a 31 picture they just reused) My center body bolt is just behind the center door post and raising that throws everything off. I tried a shim under the rear mount, but didn't seem to make any difference.
Having said all that .. my rear body pillars are a bit sloppy and may need to replace the wood or at the very least tighten them up. So I'm working on that now ..
The only mention in the repair manual for rear door adjustment on a 4-door is to adjust the hinges. Mine are slightly sloppy so working on that too ..
any other suggestions for rear doors?

Did you ever get your issue resolved?

Hi Nhinchas .. thanks for asking. "resolved" would be a relative term Front doors are almost spot on, though it concerns me i have to use 3 shims on one side and two on the other but they work good. The rear doors are still off. I tied to tighten my rear door hinges up but they still have a lot of give to them because the dog leg rear hinge pillars are in worse shape than i thought once i removed the metal around them. So ordered new wood .. it's a 3 to 6 month wait. which unfortunately means next spring for me, as my garage doesn't have heat and i usually shut down the car work by late October or early November depending on the weather here in WV. .
So, it's close, not done but i am way closer than i was when i started this thread. thanks in large to all you guys here. So appreciate the advise!
thanks
Don

I have had success modifying wood using JB Wood Weld which is an epoxy and stronger than the original wood. It fixed some of my mistakes in body work.