56 thunderbird door sag

[Guest mbraun]

My father, (non internet guy) is doing a frame up restoration of a 56 T-bird. He's almost finished but has realized that the door posts (I think that's what he called them) are not strong enough and the doors are sagging. ie. the spot the hinges connect to, is in need of restoration. He knows he can order new door posts but he has already had the entire car painted and hates to tear those posts out of there and have all the body work done again. Any ideas if there's a fix or parts that are available for fixing them? thanks in advance!

p.s. the funny thing is that he rarely goes on the internet and ended up buying this car from ebay, sight unseen! It ended up being a terrible purchase but everything is just about new in it now...Of course he's spent my inheritance on it by now!

[1957Birdman]

He may be in luck if the hinges have never been restored. If the bushings are bad in the hinges the door will sag. That is where I would look first. Also, there is a lot that can be done to adjust the doors. Look at the shop manual, it will describe what can be done.

If it truly is the door posts then I don't have much good news there. I doubt that it is possible to replace the door posts without removing the front fenders first, which is a big job considering the fact that the body is welded together as a unit.

I have sympathy for you dad, but as I'm sure you are aware he did things in totally the wrong order. He should have joined CTCI and one of their local chapters and talked to knowledgeable people about the car before he ever bought one. Buying one of these sight unseen is a disaster in the making. I would never buy one of these off of eBay unless I had a chance to look at it first. There are just too many ways for a person to get burned.

[Guest mbraun]

Thanks for the information. Yes, he did buy a heap, but its almost done and he thought the door posts had been fixed as well when the body was done. I don't think its the hinges. The bottom of the door post has fallen in and even after he bolted a metal plate to the bottom, it still bent inwards. I thought there was a way of reinforcing those door posts without replacing them, so I told him I'd look around the web and see if there were any other solutions other than replacing them... doesn't look good.

[1957Birdman]

The lower part of the door post is available as a patch piece from the T-Bird parts suppliers. It might be possible to cut the old one out and weld the new one in without undoing too much of what has already been done. That sounds like your dad's best option. What color is the car? If it is white or black it would be fairly easy to blend in compared to the other colors. I don't think the whole car would need to be repainted.

[Guest mbraun]

thanks again. I'll point him to this page so he can see what you've suggested.

[Guest martylum]

MBraun-I've done a lot of rust repair on 55-7 Birds over the years and just took a look at the backside of the door posts by removing the inner splash shields under the front fenders on a 57 TBird. In this case we derusted and painted the surface rusty back side of the door hinge mounting posts. No problem with sagging or rustout. Very often when the doors sag at the posts it is because the connection tween the vertical post and the body under the door inner rocker panel is severed by rustout at that point. This problem can be diagnosed by taking a good look under the front fender with the splash pans removed. Removing the air ducts would make it easier to access this area. I was going to attach some photos of this area but the format has changed. Have your Dad e-mail me if you think some photos of a solid car door post would be helpful.

Martin Lum

57 Bird

marty@oldercar.com