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Mod | | | Forums66 Topics128,050 Posts1,055,671 Members48,426 | | Most Online14,466 Apr 26th, 2026 | | AD Chevy Trucks Over 6,000 pictures Brad Allen has an awesome collection of Chevrolet factory pictures that he has set up from film strips. Check them out!
Lots of work on Brad's part ... pure enjoyment (and references) for you!
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on the Internet for over 30 years! and not clogged down with Ads! Again, thanks! | | | | Joined: May 2006 Posts: 102 Wrench Fetcher | | Wrench Fetcher Joined: May 2006 Posts: 102 | Hello Everyone, I am having trouble adjusting the rear doors on a '54 panel. I need to raise them at least 1/8 ". There is plenty of room up top but not at the bottom. I can see no way to adjust them. I am considering enlarging the holes on the body hinge post so I can have a little more adjustment. Before I do this I wanted to run it by all of you. Any suggestions? As always, THANKS
-------------------- All the best, Ted
All the best, Ted
| | | | | Joined: Oct 2004 Posts: 1,780 Master Gabster | | Master Gabster Joined: Oct 2004 Posts: 1,780 | First question: Was this panel hit in the rear? Is there any tell tail signs of body repair? I have not seen any adjustments on my Suburbans that have barn doors. Have you loosened the bolts that hold the door and the attach to the pillar to see if you can get the 1/8" you need?
If there has been damage, is there a way to jack the body downward 1/8" -1/4"? This might be a good question for Ray Stanley (metalman) My thought on enlarging the hinge holes would be, could they come out of adjustment on a bumpy ride? | | | | | Joined: Oct 2005 Posts: 275 Shop Shark | | Shop Shark Joined: Oct 2005 Posts: 275 | I had a heck of a time lining up my rear barn doors. Do the body lines line up on the doors when you close them? On my panel the doors where out at least half inch and what I discovered was the whole rear of the van was bent over to the passenger side. What I needed to have done was hook it to a frame straightener machine and had the back of the body pulled back over to the drivers side so the doors would line up. still isn't perfect but at least the doors open and close good. The back of the panel bodies aren't very strong so my 2 cents is that your body may be out of square. easy way to tell is measure corner to corner across the door opening. let us know how it turns out.
38 original 48 panel 59 stepside 46 in the back forty
| | | | | Joined: May 2006 Posts: 102 Wrench Fetcher | | Wrench Fetcher Joined: May 2006 Posts: 102 | Thank you Marty, Gmoniz and Highwayman, The problem turned out to me of my own making. The bottom door sill was rusted out and I replaced it with 3/16 steel. The doors were off and I was careful not to mess up the relationship between the door sill and the bottom of the doors. What I negelected to consider was that my welding (which was a complete weld) caused the rear end to draw up thus making the the sill too high to accept the doors. I should have stich welded and allowed the sill to cool before completing the patch. Once I figured out the problem I tried to muscle it using a large bar clamp which did not work. I had to cut out the body panel just under the sill and carefully bend down the flange to gain the necessary clearance. Once I got the doors to fit I tacked the now trimmed body panel, fiberglassed from the back side and finished out the exposed side. It turned out to be a good repair. This was a frame off rebuild and my BIG mistake was that I didn't mock up the doors before I painted. So I need to repaint the bottom rear body, no big deal, but I should have known about this problem before I even got close to painting. Thanks so much for trying to help, you did.
All the best, Ted
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