Re: What's involved in straigtening this door?

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2012/12/8 21:38:57

Here is a GENERAL procedure for adjusting the door on a typical American car. I have not adjusted a 56 Packard door but have done so on other cars and trucks of the fifties and sixties.

1) Remove latch. You want the door hanging free when you close it, without the latch pulling up and down.

2) Loosen the bolts holding the door to the hinge, and the hinge to the body. You want to be able to move the door around but not so loose it moves by itself.

3) Adjust the door so it fits square in the body. This usually involves moving the door on the hinges.

4) When the door fits into the body with an even gap all around, adjust the door so it fits flush in other words even, not sticking out or in. This usually involves the bolts holding the hinges to the body.

5) When the door is fitting peachy keen it is time to put the latch back on. Peek in the door as you close it, get the latch so it hits square neither up or down. Have it out a bit.

6) When the door latches perfect, notice if the door is even to the body. Move the latch in or out until it is perfect. In step 5 you deliberately left the latch too far out. If the door is out 1/4" you know to move the latch in 1/4" etc.

7) While doing this, you may find the door no longer fits to the fender. Once the door fits to the body, you may have to adjust the fender to the door.

8) If the fender needs a lot of adjusting you may need to adjust the hood to fit the fender.

When doing a complete body restoration, I have spent 2 or 3 DAYS fitting the windows to the body, the doors to the body, the fenders to the doors and the hood to the fenders. But when I was done everything fit better than the factory had it, the doors opened and shut at a touch, and you could drive up the road at 80 MPH without a squeak, a rattle or a wind whistle.

Not many customers will pay for this level of detail but those who will, end up with a real nice car.

Yours could take from an hour or 2, to several days depending what the bodyman finds. If the root of the problem is in a bent frame or old body damage from an accident it could be serious. I have also seen cases where rust damage was cut out without bracing the body properly and welded back up with the body sagged or distorted. In one case I saw, someone paid about $5000 to have new floors and rocker panels fitted to a Bentley and when they were done the doors would no longer close.

I'm not trying to scare the hell out of you. Just let you know what you might be up against.

It is not a particularly hard job physically but you have to know what you are doing and take your time.

You may be able to do it yourself if you have some mechanical savvy. Or if you take it to a body shop at least now you will know what they are talking about, if they even know what they are talking about.

Hope someone chimes in with the correct procedure from the Packard manuals, it may differ from the above which as I said, is a generic discussion of the problem.