How to (slightly) adjust door

[Efuentes]

Hi everyone. On my list of “things in my car that bug me of my TR4A but I have been too lazy to address”, I decided to give some attention to the driver side door (left, This is a LHD car). I am changing window weather strips and touching up some scratches just below the outer handle and plan to try to correct some uneven gaps. As you can see, the back gap is wider above than below, with the front gap slightly wider below than above. I was therefore wondering how could I slightly move the door towards the front in the lower side and / or slightly towards the back in the upper side. I presume that must be done by shimming the hinges. Would I have to adjust the bolts that link the hinge to the door, or the ones that attach the hinge to the A pillar?. Off the top of my head, I would think that the ones in the door... As you can see in the pictures, the bolts in the door have already been shimmed in the lower hinge. I presume that, If I remove the shims, that would move the lower part of the door forward, correct?. Door closes relatively well and gaps on the right side are reasonably good. Help most appreciated

[Efuentes]

Forgot to attach pics.

Enrique

[ctc77965o]

If you shim the hinge you also affect the height of the back of the door, which currently looks about right. Suggest better to shim the rear body against the chassis to close-up that gap at the top of B post (bend rear body upwards slightly).

[Efuentes]

Many thanks, Dave. can you shim the body without having to dismantle a lot of stuff in the back of the car?. Is a door height adjustment possible at the door hinges and how would that be done?

[stuart]

53 minutes ago, Efuentes said:

Many thanks, Dave. can you shim the body without having to dismantle a lot of stuff in the back of the car?. Is a door height adjustment possible at the door hinges and how would that be done?

The holes in the "A" post are larger than the bolts so give some adjustment there, The very rear body mounts are accessible from underneath next to where the bumper irons meet the chassis so you can add shims there to carefully bring the rear up slightly to close the top of the gap at the "B" post.

Stuart.

[Malbaby]

Door adjustment is usually achieved via bolts through the A pillar.

Seems that the PO has attempted same by shimming/washers on the lower door hinge due to the limited access on an assembled car. Also, door gaps were not attended to correctly before the repaint of the car. [could also be a problem with rear chassis].....[What happens to the rear/top door gaps when your car is lifted off the ground with the rear suspended]. 

On one of the pics the door/sill gap looks to be narrow at the front. We need a pic of the door/sill gap.

I would first try closing the gap at the bottom/front by removing the bottom hinge shims. That will marginally help in opening the gap a little at the bottom rear. But you may need to close the front gap slightly more by accessing the A pillar bolts.

Lifting the rear of the car may help close the top/rear, but you will still have a narrow gap at the bottom/rear, and other gap problems may appear. eg. other door and trunk.

There are a couple of non ideal ways to improve the bottom/rear gap. One is to loosen the 3 bolts that fix the rear fender to the B pillar, and then pull the bottom of the fender towards the rear and add packers between the pillar and fender/bolts. The other would require a repaint of the door after shaving the door edge to achieve a suitable gap. [The rear fender/sill indent gap looks good ATM, assuming the sill is original. Therefore door problem]

 

[Efuentes]

Thank you for all the tips. I have removed the footwell side panel, so access to the A pillar bolts is easy.

I am aware that chassis flex can be an issue but gaps change  only very slightly when I jack up the car (Last week, when working on the rear suspension, I would put the jack on the chassis “corner” that is well in front of the rear wheel and, once lifted, use stands placed on the area of chassis where the rear of the leaf spring attaches, therefore lifting from a point quite forward and later resting in a point quite backward, and gaps would change little) and chassis looks solid. I will try adjustment with A pillar bolts and removing door bolt shims and see how far do I get.

Enrique