The doors have been hung for a while but the fit was terrible. After doing some pulling and tugging on the door with ratchet straps and other persuading methods I was able to get the left door to fit fairly flush but the hinges were not allowing me to dial it in any further. I also had to slice a few areas on the door surround to tap the edges back so the door would clear. I'll weld them all up when I start dialing in the door gaps but I just needed to get them out of the way for now.
To get the door to fit better I determined that I needed to bend the hinges as well as to cut one of them and weld it back together. It took a few attempts at bending the hinges and then after cutting the top hinge and welding it back together I had the the LH door fitting pretty good in the surround but the it was obvious that the lower edge of the door was not gonna line up with the forward and aft edge of the cab. When I got the truck the lower portion of the door (actually both doors) was totally rusted out so I had to replace the entire lower portion so apparently I had gotten the lower section a bit too low.
The gap looked to be about 1/4” on both side (ignore the dimensions I marked on the door) so I basically re-cut the outer door skin where the original splice was and cut the inner door panel a little lower than the original splice and transitioned the two cuts on the door ends. Once the section was re-welded back onto the door (I forgot to take pics) the contour aligned with the surround but now the forward section of the lower lip scrubs on the door threshold.....crap. I'll address that at a later date. I will also need to rebuild the hinges since they have a little play in them and the springs are broken on the top hinge.
1949 Chevy Panel Truck A Project Journal I'm old but I make up for it by being immature.
