Door Alignment Issues

[pbking]

Dear Body Gurus,

I have some door fitment issues on both sides. What I'm hoping is it just needs some shims or some other bolt on-fix. I'm not exactly sure where to start however. As far as I can tell, there is no lift on the bronco and it still has the original body mounts.

Would someone be kind enough to point me into the right direction on where to start on this? Please see pictures below.

Any help is ridiculously appreciated. If you can solve the problem over the internet, I will engrave your username somewhere on the finished build

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[rmk57]

Have you tried playing around with the door striker?

New door seals can be problem to if there not worn in a bit to set up the striker or the rest of the adjustments.

 

[pbking]

Haven't thought of that. I will remove the door seals and see if the doors close. That may help closing, but will it help the gaps at the top?

 

[JAFO]

What I went through with mine is it took me hours and hours of fiddling to get both doors to fit good. Not great, good. But my body was a total rebuild, so some of the fit problems are just due to my body work I suspect.

Yours sure look really close. I think the suggestion regarding the striker is your ticket. I know you can move one of the hinges in or out/ up or down just a tiny bit and make a big difference how the rear of the door fits. You kind of find the happy medium is what happened with my Bronco. But yours seems aligned, just out in the rear, so striker is the first thing to check.

 

[KBUCK1]

There's several things going on in my opinion. The door is hitting the windshield frame at the bottom it appears. The fender to door gap looks good. Did you bolt the windshield frame on or is it still welded in place

 

[KBUCK1]

Sliding the hinge in and out does 2 things. It moves the door in and out and it also moves the door front to back slightly as the hinge post is not square to the door. It's angled. You slide the hinges in and it'll push the door to the back also

 

[Teal68]

If it has new doors seals I bet the PO got so fed up with slamming the doors that they adjusted the striker out a bit.

 

[rmk57]

I have a 57 Ford with new door seals and I had to trim off some of the rubber around the dogleg for the door to close without slamming it and still retain acceptable door gaps.

 

[Hopstr]

The door alignment is a constant source of problems for all of us. There are several issues that can cause misalignment of the doors. Old, worn out body mounts can cause the tub to be un-level. The floor supports under the front floor boards are prone to collapse also. Both these issues can cause settling in the door areas. New weatherstripping will almost always cause the rear of the door to set out, especially at the bottom. After the doors are removed they are very hard to get back on in the right spot. Alignment shims help a lot and moving the striker around. You can spend hours trying to get them right. There is also the body guys trick of putting a block between the door and pillar then pushing hard in the other area to slightly warp the door to line up better. Good luck and nice looking truck.

 

[pbking]

You guys rock, thanks for the input. I'm disappointed because some torrential rain is keeping me from checking out all the things y'all suggested.

As soon as it's dry, I'm going to be checking on the door alignment without the door seals. If that doesn't fix everything, I'll be looking into possibly sliding the hinges in a bit to see what what does for me.

I'm not sure about the windshield frame, I'll look into it. What adjustments do I need to make there to make the door fit better?

On a tangent, are there door seals that work better than others? I'm certainly willing to look into other options out there if there is a set that is recommended over others.

Thanks!

 

[Hopstr]

There are lots of posts on here about door seals, just search. Generally the softer, the better.

 

[Whoaa]

The door seals/weather striping has been an issue for a long time that many of us have dealt with.

It takes time and patients to get the doors to align really nice because every Bronco is a little different. And chances are if its not one thing, its two. It can be a combination of weather stripping, door hinge, body mounts or striker plate.

There have been previous problems with getting a mfg to make soft and accurate seals. Here are some threads I just pulled up that you may want to read

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=263780&highlight=door+seals

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260984&highlight=door+seals

http://classicbroncos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=262359&highlight=door+seals

 

[pbking]

Thanks guys. After reading my post, I realized I should have just searched door seals, but thanks much for linking them.

Counting on some less rainy weather soon so I can do some investigation.

 

[Teal68]

If you put new seals on, heck for that matter be sure to look at the ones that are on there now, and make sure the seal is fully bonded/seated to the opening. If it rolls around toward the opening it effectively makes it thicker....and much harder to close the door.