Door adjustment tips needed please

[Gary71]

The other method I’m aware of for a small adjustment of a high sill is to put a long block of oak or similar down it’s length on the outer flange then using the larger of your fettling sticks to apply a vertical ‘tap’

[deano]

The other method I’m aware of for a small adjustment of a high sill is to put a long block of oak or similar down it’s length on the outer flange then using the larger of your fettling sticks to apply a vertical ‘tap’

Hey Gary, would you do that to your car!? Luckily, I'm not too bovverd about my allegedly high sill at the moment, its the least of my problems.....

[deano]

Id machine the hinges, or run a small fillet of plate along door edge and tig it.The advantage with this option, is that you get to grind it for a perfect fit.

Hi Coomo, I am coming round to the idea of adding material to the door because this might solve all my problems and my TIG skills are pretty good nowadays (but no-one will convince me to weld to my new shiny wings, and in my experience new OEM sheet metal doesnt like TIG). Given that I might need to add up to 5 or 6 mm, and this will vary from one end to the other, I was wondering if you could elaborate on what you mean by "fillet of plate". Is that basically a fish-shaped piece of steel, or did you mean fillet of plaice? Joking aside, what you are proposing sounds quite tricky, partly because the steel will warp like crazy, but I might not be understanding correctly. I have sketched on a photo - are you suggesting adding a thin sheet section as shown, or something thicker (how thick, short sections at a time?)? If its thicker, I need to taper the edge to get the filler rod in (fill with the rod). In either case, wont it be difficult to get this extension flush with the door skin?

Looking at your pics, the L/H door & wing one.To me it looks like the rear quarter is bowed out?Thats gonna cause the problems your finding.

I'm not certain what you are saying here, but this sounds important to understand if you think this could be causing these problems, and I dont understand how this could. I just had a look at the rear quarters - they both match the shape of the doors pretty well, but I dont think you are talking about that? Also, the door latch is not positioned perfectly, so it might look like (3rd pic down) the quarter is slightly proud of the door but it wont be once I adjust the door latch. In which direction do you think the rear quarter is bowing out, and how would this lead to my gap problems...?

appreciate your help!! cheers, Dean

[coomo]

Id machine the hinges, or run a small fillet of plate along door edge and tig it.The advantage with this option, is that you get to grind it for a perfect fit.

Hi Coomo, I am coming round to the idea of adding material to the door because this might solve all my problems and my TIG skills are pretty good nowadays (but no-one will convince me to weld to my new shiny wings, and in my experience new OEM sheet metal doesnt like TIG). Given that I might need to add up to 5 or 6 mm, and this will vary from one end to the other, I was wondering if you could elaborate on what you mean by "fillet of plate". Is that basically a fish-shaped piece of steel, or did you mean fillet of plaice? Joking aside, what you are proposing sounds quite tricky, partly because the steel will warp like crazy, but I might not be understanding correctly. I have sketched on a photo - are you suggesting adding a thin sheet section as shown, or something thicker (how thick, short sections at a time?)? If its thicker, I need to taper the edge to get the filler rod in (fill with the rod). In either case, wont it be difficult to get this extension flush with the door skin?

Looking at your pics, the L/H door & wing one.To me it looks like the rear quarter is bowed out?Thats gonna cause the problems your finding.

I'm not certain what you are saying here, but this sounds important to understand if you think this could be causing these problems, and I dont understand how this could. I just had a look at the rear quarters - they both match the shape of the doors pretty well, but I dont think you are talking about that? Also, the door latch is not positioned perfectly, so it might look like (3rd pic down) the quarter is slightly proud of the door but it wont be once I adjust the door latch. In which direction do you think the rear quarter is bowing out, and how would this lead to my gap problems...?

appreciate your help!! cheers, Dean

re the rear quarter bowing out.Sorry mate but your pics are bit difficult to see.If both rear quarter profiles are the same, then its probably ok, just my eyes.if that door latch is in the wrong position, it may be the panel has not been fitted well.Obviously the lock has a lot of wiggle room but if the panel is so far out it may have run out of wiggle room!
Re the fillet.Id use 2mm plate.make it fit to the edge snugly.make it 3/5mm wide.You can do this is one section.clamp in place and TIG every 2 / inches, then hammer & cool.You can grind the outside edge then, to fit.Yes, your going to get distortion.Keeping the heat up will leave your welding window a lot smaller before you blow holes,but you will get less distortion.once its ground flat, it will likely need a skim of filler.
Ive looked at the picture of the rear quarter & door again.Are those panels wobbly or is it my imagination? Im not happy that you doing all this adjustment work on a shell that is still painted.We dont know if its covered in buckets of filler.If you have a DA Id sugest at least getting the panels to bare metal on the edges.

[Gary71]

The other method I’m aware of for a small adjustment of a high sill is to put a long block of oak or similar down it’s length on the outer flange then using the larger of your fettling sticks to apply a vertical ‘tap’

Hey Gary, would you do that to your car!? Luckily, I'm not too bovverd about my allegedly high sill at the moment, its the least of my problems.....

If it needed it certainly. I’d rather do that than slit and weld. Both have their problems:merits

[911hillclimber]

Blocking a sill that way is normal practice.

Try fitting Dansk sills without having to do that.

The door lock has zero adjustment, the striker on the B post has all the adjustment but not miles and if in the incorrect position you will run out of adjustment.

I feel all these close adjustments should be done with the lock and striker in place, and be sure the captive striker plate is able to be moved all the way across the panel slots.
When I did my shell in '88 and again in 2018 (new front wings) I used the door seals in place and always on unpainted surfaces.
Can I suggest you also fit the window frames to check for fit to the upper door opening? There is very little adjustment in the frame mounting holes.

In your pic above showing the filling piece that is the area where I welded a 3mm dia steel wire to the edge to close the gap. Really, 3mm was not enough, 5mm would have been better and then dress the edge to get the gap.

Allow for paint build-up!

Frustrating time on any car restoration. I had a very troublesome MGB GT before my 911 when I did the full sills/wings/doors, they are all the same, and the fight is the same too!

[deano]

Ive looked at the picture of the rear quarter & door again.Are those panels wobbly or is it my imagination? Im not happy that you doing all this adjustment work on a shell that is still painted.We dont know if its covered in buckets of filler.If you have a DA Id sugest at least getting the panels to bare metal on the edges.

Hey, great tips, thanks Coomo. I have DA'd the paint off in small sections every so often, so I can see where the edges are, but not on the door yet because I was trying not to touch them. The penny has dropped now tho

It sounds like a time-consuming welding job, and lots of expensive Argon too!! but this is an option now thanks. I am curious how you dealt with the topmost part of the door - do you taper off the new metal at the top as per my sketch, and do you put a bit of filler behind the whole new section to blend it in at the back (make it look less like a knife edge)? Do you start with a straight strip of 2mm and form it by hand to the door shape as you weld it at intervals? I suppose I will see as I am doing it, its a bit hard to visualise in front of a keyboard....

I don't think my panels are wobbly, it must be the picture

[deano]

Blocking the sill it is then !!

I was only supposed to be doing the 'front' of this car; now I'm all the way back to the door latches!!

At least now a have a plan to move forward that doesnt include (yet) welding my lovely new wings, so thanks to everyone for persisting with advice and opinions, it has really helped... (looks like I might have to get the top hinges skimmed, but might hit them with a mallet first, just because they deserve it !

[coomo]

Ive looked at the picture of the rear quarter & door again.Are those panels wobbly or is it my imagination? Im not happy that you doing all this adjustment work on a shell that is still painted.We dont know if its covered in buckets of filler.If you have a DA Id sugest at least getting the panels to bare metal on the edges.

Hey, great tips, thanks Coomo. I have DA'd the paint off in small sections every so often, so I can see where the edges are, but not on the door yet because I was trying not to touch them. The penny has dropped now tho

It sounds like a time-consuming welding job, and lots of expensive Argon too!! but this is an option now thanks. I am curious how you dealt with the topmost part of the door - do you taper off the new metal at the top as per my sketch, and do you put a bit of filler behind the whole new section to blend it in at the back (make it look less like a knife edge)? Do you start with a straight strip of 2mm and form it by hand to the door shape as you weld it at intervals? I suppose I will see as I am doing it, its a bit hard to visualise in front of a keyboard....

I don't think my panels are wobbly, it must be the picture

Dont use a piece of steel and try to form it as you go.Make the exact shape you need so once its clamped you just have to weld it.re the "knife edge" it will need some filler which will add to thickness obviously if you weld flush to the back of the door edge, the filler should build up to the front of door skin.Hope that makes sense.

[deano]

Dont use a piece of steel and try to form it as you go.Make the exact shape you need so once its clamped you just have to weld it.re the "knife edge" it will need some filler which will add to thickness obviously if you weld flush to the back of the door edge, the filler should build up to the front of door skin.Hope that makes sense.

Ahh, I never thought of making it flush to the back side and filling the front to make it all flush, but that makes great sense!

[deano]

A small update guys, and an important question

- is the 'ideal' doorbottom-to-sill gap supposed to be 4 or 6 mm please?

If you remember, I was trying to get my door forward a couple of mm, to help close huge door-to-wing gaps, but there were no shims on the top hinge so difficult to move it forward without a mallet! The door was also proud at the front compared to the new wing, so I wanted to move the door inwards too, to compensate.

The update is that I attempted the door adjustment for the first time yesterday (solo). There was plenty of vertical movement, and I levered the door upwards to get a much smaller door top-wing gap of 6mm, at the expense of a much bigger gap at the door bottom of 8mm. Interestingly, the door has moved forward by a couple of millimetres too, which is what I wanted. This implies that the hinge post is not perfectly vertical, but subtly slopes up toward the front of the car (unexpected bonus!).

Unfortunately, the door bottom is now sitting out/proud/twisted at the rear bottom. This implies that the bottom door hinge needs to go inwards I think.

However, the door hinge will not go inwards , despite there being plenty of adjustment around the hinge bolts themselves - this seems to be because the hinges, where they curl around the flanged edges of the hinge post, are already right up against the side of the hinge post !! I think I can tap the outer edge of the hinge post inwards to allow the hinges to slide in a little.....

If I can get the door back so it is not twisted, I think it will be in a better position than when I started, with smaller wing gaps and no need to weld plate onto the door....

Anyway, back to the original question - what should the bottom of the door to sill gap be please guys?

Maybe I should plan on replacing the outer sill too, so I can set its height ?

[deano]

Another pic...

[deano]

Door gaps, wing gaps and bonnet gaps sorted by our resident body man - including with a sledge hammer to the hinge posts watch out for pics and info on my restoration thread...

[Cookie]

Where are you? Barry Carter is the man or I can take a look for you, I am situated in Buckingham.