Paint and Body How Do You Align Doors?

[wgreenlee4]

My driver door sits 1cm too low at the end (latching part). It is very difficult to open the door and it's so bad the rain literally pours into the car and soaks me and the interior. The hinge pins are perfect and have no play at all. When you open the door it does not immediately droop down like a car with bad hinges does. The striker plastic bushings is gone and I assume installing a new one would immediately break it because the door sits so bad.

I cannot find even a little information online about how to align mustang doors. Can the hinges be moved? Do I have to remove the quarter panel?

 

[General karthief]

Yes the door is adjusted by the hinges, for expet advice I will summon a couple experts
@Davedacarpainter or @madmike1157
Oh, probably would help to post a couple pics, door closed and maybe the striker area.

 

[stpete]

The hinge pin test is to lift the door when it is open. Mine never dropped down when opened, but I could lift it and feel the play. Sounds like you need hinge pins to me. On old foxes with some miles, if it hasn't been done it's almost a guarantee it needs it. My '93 with 100K was bad enough it cracked a piece off the GT lower cladding.

 

[Fordfreak93]

If you open your door all the way and do not feel any play when you lift up on it, then you probably just need to adjust the alignment of the door. This can be done with the six bolts that attach the door to the car. It makes it a lot easier to take the fender off, but it can be done with it on. I would start by trying to move the top hinge more forward to help raise the bottom edge of the door up. You may need to just barely loosen the bottom hinge to move the top one. One good tip is to mark the edges of your current hinge location with a marker, so you know which way you've moved it and what adjustments it still needs. Pics will help us determine which way it needs to go.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

If you open your door all the way and do not feel any play when you lift up on it, then you probably just need to adjust the alignment of the door. This can be done with the six bolts that attach the door to the car. It makes it a lot easier to take the fender off, but it can be done with it on. I would start by trying to move the top hinge more forward to help raise the bottom edge of the door up. You may need to just barely loosen the bottom hinge to move the top one. One good tip is to mark the edges of your current hinge location with a marker, so you know which way you've moved it and what adjustments it still needs. Pics will help us determine which way it needs to go.

Exactly. @Fordfreak93 is right about it being easier to have the fender off.

 

[wgreenlee4]

Thanks for the advice guys, glad to hear it is adjustable. I will check out where those bolts are and see if I want to pull the fender. For now here are some pictures of how it looks currently. The door is closed in all of these pictures except for the one I'm physically holding with my hand.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Thanks for the advice guys, glad to hear it is adjustable. I will check out where those bolts are and see if I want to pull the fender. For now here are some pictures of how it looks currently. The door is closed in all of these pictures except for the one I'm physically holding with my hand.

Holy crap! Move the striker up until the door body lines match up with the 1/4 body lines.

That door has dropped a bunch. You'll need to adjust the hinge bolts as well. I understand the hesitancy of wanting to take the fender off. You can adjust it with it on, it's just a little bit of a pita to do it.

First, the striker, then the hinges.

Truthfully, the front of the door is low too. This is fairly easy to fix, luckily.

BTW, I bet you're getting wet! It really might take you 15-30 minutes to fix that.

 

[wgreenlee4]

When I changed the striker on the passenger side, I did not see any way it could be adjusted, the bolt goes right into the threaded hole in the B pillar. Also, the door is so far off right now that it closes hard and feels locked because it is so tight. Even if it is possible to adjust the striker, if I do that right now won't I not even be able to close the door anymore? I am under the impression that striker is still in the factory position.

BTW yes I always have a wet bum when it's raining.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Your striker, once it's partially threaded, should be able to move up and down a small amount. Try loosening it a few turns and move it up.

When I get home I'll take a picture of my red cars' striker area so you can see how it's built.

 

[wgreenlee4]

Okay I took messed around with them some and I see now there is some adjustment. I can't get the striker to move any higher than how it already is. And like I said, it's already really hard to open and close the door so I think putting it higher will make it unusable. I rechecked my pins and see there is a tiny bit of play in the top hinge but only some. If you force the door into it's highest position it still doesn't line up at all. I also looked at the hinges that are bolted to the body and see that there are 3 per hinge; as you guys said it would be much easier to pull the fender. You can get to 2 of them but the third is tucked away.

 

[Davedacarpainter]

Yeah, the hinges are far enough off that it makes adjusting the striker seem relatively useless.