1979 door adjustment

[Lee H]

My driver side door needs adjustment. I need to adjust the top of the door away from the body. (outward) I shought I could use shims. I was hoping I could just loosen the top hinge and fit the shim behind the hinge. Think thats possible? Any one know where I can get the shims?

 

[JohnGrawcock]

If only life was simple.

I had lots of fun correcting the door gaps on my wifes 1980. If you've never done this before be prepare for it to tun into a bigger job that you thought. Do it at a time when you can afford to have the car off the road for a while. You may have to tincker around trying to get it to come out right. It would help if your a contorsionist.

You need to remove the kick panel, the heat duct under the steering column, and the side vent to access the hinge bolts. You'll find that each of the hinges has four bolts. On the shims the openings for the bottom two bolts are actually slots that allow you to slip the shim in over the bolts. However, the top two bolts go through holes so you will have to remove these bolt completely.
Unfortuneately, I don't think you'll get a shim behind the top hinge without loosening the bolts for the bottom one. This means the door will be entirely loose so there is the potential to get it way out of adjustment. You'll also need to use a floor jack or something toword the rear of the door to keep it from falling too much.
When you think you have the right number of shims in place very carefully close the door for the first time with the window down watching for interfearence with the front fender. It is important that the window is down because if the door has moved the window is going to be out of adjust ment and could be damaged. Once your satisfied with the door adjustment go back and do the window.

 

[76okievette]

Lee, I am not sure how bad your door is but on my 76, I thought I needed to adjust the hinges to get the door up and in, my door was sagging at the back and did not go in flush. Well to make a long story short, all I had to do to fix mine was to adjust the big hinge pin (not the correct name its the big bolt that the door latches to) in the door jam. I loosened this up and through a little trial and error I was able to get the door to close perfectly. This is a lot easier than messing with the door hinges so you might want to see if this can help your problem. DON"T completely loosen the hinge pin just loosen it up a little and it will move, if you raise it up you will be raising the door, if you move it in you will be pulling the door in. I just used a allen wrench to loosen and tighten the pin but I believe there is a special tool a "star" wrench, I think. Hope this helps

 

[Lee H]

door adjustment

The top of my door needs to be adjusted outward about 1/8-1/4" Another problem this misadjustment has created is that my power window is rising at the wrong angle. It is adjusted with the felts all the way out. However it still digs into the weather stripping at about 3/4 the way up. I am hoping that the door adjustment will change the angle enough to make it work right. I have spent hours with this power window.
Thanks for the reply.

Anyone know where to buy the door shims?

thanks

 

[76okievette]

Hope you get it worked out, I have to adjust my windows both of the will not go all the way up with the door closed they hit about 1/2 to 1/4 inch form the top, so now I just close them with the door open then shut the door, I will attemp to get them adjusted this winter. I would try the door latch pin and see if it helps if you push it out about a 1/4 to a 1/8 of a inch it should move the door out a little. Just my take. Good luck and let me know how it goes.