The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Door alignment

Good morning, not sure where to post my question. How does a guy align the doors on a 1940 truck. The drivers door is good but the passenger door sags between a 1/4" and 1/2" how do you adjust it to bring it back up, the hinge is in good shape and tight, the jam is not bent nor is the door. Thank you.

Hey D,

We actually have a Doors sub-forum under Paint & Body, so I'm moving your question there. You'll also see there the first thread is Tech Tips from the Back Room that you may find helpful.

Welcome to Stovebolt.

Thank you, wasn't sure where to put it, also, very new to this forum stuff.

No worries. We have good people to help you out. If you do just one more post (even just a "thank you" here ), that'll put you out of moderation and your posts will get directly where you want them to go.

Also, check out our Little Bolter as he is figuring out what's where.

With your door close to closed, when you grab the B pillar/latch side, and lift up and down, can you feel much movement? If so, you'll need to address that wear first.

One way to adjust the door, would be to bend the hinges slightly. Easiest way would be to gently bend them in a press. To figure out which one to bend, look at your door closed and see which hinge area has the biggest gap. That's the hinge you'll want to tweak. If you have a gap that is way too tight, that is the hinge you'll want to address.

If you don't have the tools to do or make for bending hinges, you can put a jack under the door, with a block of wood to help spread the load, and come up on the jack until the door is just past the required place you want it to be. You'll want to do this with the door in as close to a closed position that you can get it. I like using a piece of 4 X 4 as it doesn't flex as much as a 2 X 4. It is best to take your time and slowly sneak up on your final position. Also, if you run out of lift on the jack, you can either add more blocks or put your weight on the running boards. Give a tiny jump while up there to nudge things along if necessary.

Look at it this way. Truck owner and his absolutely huge corn fed buddy are driving in to town. Buddy says "Stop! I see a girl I want to talk to!" Driver stops and buddy cracks that door open, leans on it and breaks out his best pick up lines. Repeat every Saturday night for the next ten years. That poor door spent every Saturday getting pushed towards earth until buddy found himself a girl. Now you have an opportunity to push that door back towards the sky. Back where it came from. It took buddy ten years to make it sag that 1/2". You can get it back there in less than ten years, but don't try to get it done in 5 seconds. Bad things could happen.

Thank you sir for the info, I have the cab off of the frame right now, I just replaced the blocks of wood in the floor and was wondering if the distance between the cowl side of the cab and the passenger compartment side could have something to do with it as well.