Door Skin alignment

[mhnova65]

Hi All.

 

A question for those who have done their own body work and fought with the doors....

 

Currently working on the door gaps and alignment and having a tough time getting the edges of the door to be flush with the quarters and fender edges.  After aligning the doors, I added an removed material from the edges to get a consistent 3/16 panel gap on both sides.  I gently pried the door edges where needed to get the door skins flush to both surfaces and everything was looking good....till i removed the door panel to finish grinding my welds.

 

When you pry up on the edges of these doors, it is not the door edge that moves but the mounting tabs that house the t-bolts begin to open up.  Unlike a typical door that has the skin wrapped around the door panel and is a solid piece.  I had tack welded the tabs on the inside of the door to prevent them from separating however, what little edge is available on the skin does not have much give to get the edges flush without distorting a the t-bolts areas.  I'm trying to get the doors as flush as possible so that only limited filler is used to flatten the surface.

 

 

[Zimm63]

Put the skins on and adjust the door.  You can adjust the front fenders as well.  Easier said than done, though.

 

 

[RivNut]

You should be able to reach all of the hinge adjustment bolts with the skin on.  Some 63's require removal of the skin to reach the hinge bolts.

 

If you have a 64 Body (not chassis) manual, there'll be an alignment procedure outlined along with illustrations.

[petelempert]

Welcome to the dark arts of first gen door skin repair. I put my skins on after mounting the door inner doors though I've heard of people doing it Zimm63's method. You really have three forms of alignment: the inner door at the hinges, the skins can be manipulated through the t bolts and also the fender. I never had to mess with the fender, but the hinge and t-bolts took a lot of patience. My biggest squawk was the skins tended to "bow-out" in the middle rather than at the shut-lines. Sort of a surprise since I would have expected them to sag low along the bottom edge of  the inner door. Solved it by getting a buddy to press his weight against the middle while I tightened the middle t bolts front and back. Patience my friend. Also, walk away for a while and come back later if it starts to piss you off. PRL

[mhnova65]

Thanks for the input guys but I might have created the wrong impression with this thread title.

 

The issue is not the door alignment in the body.  That has been adjusted and the doors are where they need to be.  The issue is with the plane of the door as it relates the face of the quarter panel and fender (not the edges/ door gap).  These older cars tend to look like a stack of marshmallows on a stick instead of flat along the entire length of the body.  The edges of the door tend to dive in instead of being flush with the outer surface.   A bit of prying with a body spoon tends to get them back up to the surface on a conventional door but with the removable door skins on the Riviera, it creates the issues outlined in my original post.