The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Panels 'N Burbs Aligning Barn Doors in my '51

Anyone out there who changed from clamshells to barn doors? I have done this.
My problem is this: I drilled my hinge holes in the pillars exactly in the indents where they would have been from the factory. I then slid in the hinges and doors from a rust free matching set. My passenger side fits almost perfectly. However, driver's door is 3/16 to 1/4 inch lower than the passenger door with a gap of 1/4 inch too much in the center. It also touches the pillar edge on the left. The hinges are not worn.
Do the hinges have to be shimmed or bent with heat? That seems kind of drastic. Am I overlooking something obvious here?

if the 51 is the same as 55-59, the slot in the pillar the hinge goes in is 'sloppy', and the bolt holes in the sheet metal are oversize, so there's adjustment possible [certainly 1/4"], ditto where the hinges bolt into the doors .... but it could also be the case that the doors you have just don't fit the opening well, a common problem with using parts not original to a particular truck, at the factory they could chuck that set aside and try a different pair, you're stuck with fudging it as necessary, shims might be part of the cure .... check your shop manual Cab and Body section, barn door adjustments should be near the same as side doors

Bill

Sounds like your rear door body opening itself may not be plumb.
There is a fair amount of geometry involved for the fix.
The Panel/Burb bodies are known to "lean" to one side or the other over time
{which makes the rear door opening more of a parallelogram than a rectangle}.

If you can fit a body jack diagonally into the rear door opening & get the doors lined up after cranking on it.... you got body lean.




Fixes include cranking on the diagonally mounted body jack farther than needed to align the rear doors in hopes that the sheetmetal door opening forgets it's "memory" & returns to a position that aligns the rear door opening in more of a rectangle position.
{be carefull not to stretch or distort the door opening even wider when attempting this adjustment}.

The barn door hinges are also designed as "bend to fit" for minor adjustments so they will need to be removed, heated & bent to get the belt line of the rear doors aligned perfectly {if you can't do it by correcting the angles of the rear door opening itself with the jack method }.


Your mileage may vary.

Bill,
Thanks for the reply and the link. Will try the shims first. I'll post my results as soon as I resolve this.
Tony

Simplex,
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad I paid attention in math class in school. As soon as I saw "parallelogram" I could envision the rear opening way out of wack. I have my work cut out for me. As soon as I correct this I'll post. Thanks again.
Tony

Before you go to far make sure the welds on the door hinge is not broke or weak. Mine were..drilled the door rosebud welded and that alone helped a bunch. No flex now

Thanks for your input Iceberg. I checked the welds and they seem to be ok. My buddy who has a restoration business suggested I try the procedure outlined in the (please excuse my language!) Ford service manual for rear panel truck doors. Believe it or not, they suggest using 2 x 4 "shims" or wedges to be placed in the hinge as you slowly shut the door and carefully push on it to bend the hinge in small increments. I can't try that until I elongate the holes on the body to raise the door up on the side sill. I cant do that until it gets back up to the low 30's in temp as it's too cold to wrench in my garages. I'll keep everyone posted.

Take off hinges and latches and see if they fit at all before all this cranking/cutting/stretching/drilling/shimming. There are fairly large gaps and associated tolerances allowable from factory. But of course, they do have to actually close and look uniform. If you can mock them in there as you want them to fit, you may then see the best method to proceed. Grinding A LITTLE on door edges and/or opening edges is not out of the question either....or "filling" as the case may be. I would not jack on the opening under any circumstance.