Tips for door adjustment

Ive only recently bought my 3500S and the doors dont line up quite right. Visible by the chrome strips and swage lines not being quite right. The car was apart in the very late 80's when it was restored. I would like to have a go at getting it all right. Are there any tips or advice. I will check for any movement in the hinge pins at some point before I take anything apart. Are they still available as new or re manufactured.
 
The hinges are adjustable and never wear because they don't have conventional hinge pins. You can use the hinges to move the doors up and down. If you need to move the door clockwise or anti-clockwise in the aperture or in or out relative to the base unit you have to do it by adding or subtracting shims behind the necessary hinge halves.

See here for an idea of how the hinges work.

Bodywork / Front Door.jpg
 
That's great I've heard comment in other threads about how the hinge pins just wind in and out is that part of the adjustment or is it a case of undoing the large screws that hold the hinges to the A and B post and moving the door up or down. Sorry for needing the idiots guide
 
You move the threaded hinge pins up and down to raise or lower the door. You only need to remove the hinge halves that are screwed to the door and the pillar if you need to add or remove the shims behind them.
 
While Harvey is right that the pins never wear, the hinge socket has a nylon cup which can wear. But I've only seen maybe two high mileage cars with that cup (on a driver's door) worn enough to make a difference so it's pretty safe to say any misalignment is adjustment not wear.

Yours
Vern
 
Thanks for that I will have to have a look. I hope it wont need the shims as that sounds like a real pain to do
Not if you have the right shims. They are slotted so you don't have to remove the hinge, just slacken it and slide them in. By the way, the large screws are #4 Pozidriv. Looks like a Phillips but isn't, to my mind it's worth seeking out a #4 Pozidriv bit because the #4 Phillips doesn't fit so good.

Yours
Vern
 
I usually find the impact driver and use the bits from that in a 1/2" driver socket bar. Does the job :)

Richard
 
I still havnt got chance to look at this yet I will try adjusting the doors but looking at the I would guess they need shims as raising the door as a whole would break the alignment elsewhere. Are the shims different sizes etc
 
Had a chance to have a look at the doors tonight by candle light. I m not sure shims are going to get it right I think it's going to come down to adjusting the pins. I noticed at the top of the threaded pin it's hex shaped as if to take a small spanner. Is the idea to undo or tighten the large nut whilst holding the pin still with a smaller spanner.

I assume loosening the top hinge nut to give upward movement whilst tightening the bottom hinge nut would raise the door.

I know this probably sounds stupid asking like this but I have yet to get a manual and the bottom nut I couldn't tighten at all. I didn't want to force things without knowing what I was done first.
 
You do the adjustment with the pins (5/16"AF), the nut is just a locknut. To raise the door slacken the bottom pin, then wind the top pin upwards.
 
Ok so after 2 days of messing about with the hinges and shims, doors off, doors on, doors off, on ,off,on I have the, 100% better than they were. Very proud of myself but thanks to one who helped out. Next questions though is are the window frames adjustable at all? To get one of my back doors really perfect the window from catches on the C pillar and wondered if there was any movement in those and how. I can see there are screws that look like they hold the window frame in but didn't want to mess again if it's a big no no.
 
Yes the frame is adjustable. You can lean the top in and out a bit and move the entire thing up and down, once again just a little bit. When you say C pillar, do you mean the rear pillar or the centre pillar? Lots of folks call the rear pillar C the it is actually D and the centre pillar between the doors is the B-C pillar.

Yours
Vern
 
sounds like you might need to drop the rear edge of the window frame down a tad but before youdo that, the top of the D post has a bolt/screw on cover over it with the emblem on it. If it is fouling that then try screwing it in a bit more first.There are two screw on the inside that need to be loosened first though, under the finisher which has a screw in the bottom front corner and i think one more at the window end, then they slide out forward. The two screws are in the panel behind. loosen them but don't take them out as they will be a pain to get into their captive nuts if you move the panel alignment. You can then tighten the screws in the door opening end of the finisher. Again avoid taking them out as they can be a real pain to get back in.
 
My front doors are both riding on the top of their strikers, but when closed the window frames look very well aligned - should I try to raise the doors a touch, or do I need to rotate them clockwise in the aperture? Lowering the strikers would just allow the frame to go out of alignment?
thanks
 
Lowering the strikers would just allow the frame to go out of alignment?

I'm not sure that follows. If you just loosen the striker slightly & tap it down a mm or so, I would have thought that would do the trick, if everything else is in alignment.
 
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