The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Update on Positioning Doors - 52 3100

As with many of us, I struggled to correctly position doors within the cab that has had extensive metal replacement. To complicate matters, the metal replacement was done on a rotisserie that required the doors to be removed and I didn't know enough to take note of the door positioning before I removed them.

I was whining to a friend (who has a "shade tree" shop) that I could not get a "pro" to take a look at my door issues without dragging the cab to their shop (it is bare metal at the moment). My friend told me to call "Doug and Bill". They have done body work all their lives and although they are retired (I am 75 and they are clearly older... or maybe a lifetime of body work ages you prematurely?).

Well, Doug and Bill showed up at my garage one Saturday morning. Within 5 minutes, Bill was asking at me to get this tool and that tool and to raise the door up in the back... now down, etc. Within say 15 minutes, the driver door was aligned with a suitable gap all around, except for the very bottom, rear, where I had added a replacement cab corner... that will require a litle bit of metal to be added to the cab corner to make the gap at the rear of the door, consistent (see first picture).

The passenger door was more of a challenge. After getting the door "where it had to be" (see second picture) after bending the top of the door outward, Bill pointed out that to achieve a more acceptable and consistent gap would require cutting the cab. He proceeded to cut the cab at the beltline at the front of the door, to establish what he felt was an acceptable gap (see third picture). He then went to town slicing the passenger side outside cowl in an attmpt to duplicate what he did to the cab at the beltline (see 4th picture). He soon said that I would not be happy with result becasue of the vents... they would be distorted. Bill advised me to get a replacement side cowl withoout the vents and since the door is now on the cab, I should be able to position the new cowl piece to achieve the gap he defined at the beltline.

Turning his attention to the gap at the rear of the passenger door, he advised that to make it consistent to the eye, I would need to make a vertical slice in the cab starting about 1/3 up from the bottom in order to create a little more gap space on the lower part of the door.

Bill then took a 1/8 drill bit and proceeded to drill pilot holes in hinges and doors so that the door placement can be repeated when the doors are removed. He also replaced 1 3/8-24 bolt with a 5/16 bolt and nut because he felt that it was not worth the effort to cut at the hinge opening (that slides inside the door) to make all 3 holes line up perfectly.

I consider myself lucky to have Doug and Bill pay me a visit and I share this with my Stovebolt friends just in case any of the information might help them in their adventures with AD doors. As for me, I am off to replace the passenger side outer cowl and to CONSIDER the advice that I might need to do a vertical slice to the cab at the lower rear of the passeneger side door.

Pat, you're definitely fortunate to have guys like Doug and Bill help you out.

When I screwed up the door opening on the passenger side of my truck, making the door gap too close, rather than cut on the cab, I ground the door edge back and welded it closed. I thought that approach was better than cutting the cab panels. In the case of your passenger side cowl, I don't know of a replacement that doesn't have the vent louvers. Cutting back the door edge there would have been a better choice than cutting the cowl at the louvers, but it looks like that's a done deal. I agree that the louvers will get warped when that cut is welded back up. I only replaced the lower portion of the outer cowl there and retained the original louvers.

Looks like it's fortunate there's an access opening behind that 5/16 bolt to get a nut on it. But I think I would have spent a few minutes grinding the slot in the hinge arm to fit the original size bolt into the captive nut.

Moral of the story - Pay close attention to the original door opening dimensions.

Agreed Kevin... it was a rookie mistake that I won't make twice, since I am not a rookie anymore (the mistake was not knowing to observe door fitment before disassembly). I also reserve the right to trim the door to get the right gap, once I replace the passenger side cowl, rather than cutting the cowl. My hope there is that I can position the new cowl piece to achieve the desired gap now that I have the door hung as a reference.. . Same thing with that recommended cut on the rear of the cab... maybe able to get the right gap by trimming the lower part of the edge of the back of the door. I also agree about doing it right on making the 3/8-24 bolt work rather than using the 5/16 bolt.

Look at Raybuck part # 0846-132... passenger side cowl, no louvers.

Thanks, as always, for your proactive support.

Thanks for sharing your story Pat. Hopefully a new guy who reads this will learn that "You need to start with a door and build the cab to fit around it."
There should be T-shirts and ball caps made, and widely distributed which state just that.

Update: Removed the passenger side cowl with the vents that my friend Bill cut up vertically trying to establish an acceptable door gap. Test fitted a replacement cowl with no vent. The replacement still left no gap. So I created a pattern of the shape of the front of the door (just because, see first picture). I used that pattern to slice the replacement cowl from top to bottom (see second picture). Now I can position the piece of the cowl that establishes a gap, as necessary (see third picture), and then trim a little bit off of the front piece of the sliced cowl so that I can weld them back together and... have an acceptable gap.

Now the hard part... can the old man weld the two pieces of the cowl together such that it will cosmetically be acceptabe? I have a better chance of accomplishing that since I will be welding it "off the cab".

BTW... got a heliocoil kit to fix that one, stripped 3/8-24 bolt.

Good idea on splitting the cowl to fix the gap. Definitely weld that back together off the truck. You should be able to weld it without distortion following MP&C's procedure of welding individual dots and planishing them individually before welding the next set of dots. Good luck.

Good work on the helicoil, too. I rely on those things.