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What does this mean and does it apply to my 400?

From the manual,
"Check the forward end of the check strap, using a new rivet and preening over the end."

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This is the check strap. The opening where it slides into the door limits what you can use as a replacement for the rivet but a thin head screw and thin jamb nut instead of a new rivet will work. When I did mine I reused the old rivet by turning it upside down. The end normally on the bottom is large enough to keep the rivet in the hole without falling thru. Gravity holds it in but you can also add a dab of adhesive or epoxy under the head. If the old rivet is too damaged or was thrown away you could also use a shortened clevis pin as those heads are thin and wide.

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Thank you, that makes sense.

It is typical of me that I just read the door installation part of the manual last night. It is only 1 paragraph.

I am not 100% certain yet that the door frame is out of alignment. I do not know what to measure to figure it out.

Also, I was not aware until yesterday that the "hinge to piler" bolts are also adjustable. I thought only the "hinge to door" was adjustable. if someone told me about piler bolts I am sorry, I missed it.

I was never able to remove the center bolt of the top hing until today. It was frozen with rust, I guess. I am shopping Mcmaster & Carr site now for a replacement if that tells you anything.

I still do not completely understand the directions I posted above. I get that I need to bolt the hinge to the door (loosely) and install the whole thing (hinge and door) into the door frame. Now how do I "torque tighten the hinge to piler bolts" if the door is in the frame?

If the pillar bolts are adjustable then that makes two of use that was unaware. I have been under the impression they thread into capture nuts in cages but adjustment motion if any is very limited.

I read the install paragraph to mean the screws are in but loose and door is open but supported on the bottom since it does say to support the door before torquing the bolts on the pillar side. It goes on to say leave the door panel to hinge side loose until the door is adjusted so after the pillar side is tight then close the door and use shims or whatever to get and hold the gap correct then tighten the leaf to door side bolts from the inside of car.

That is how I did mine anyway and they seemed to line up without too much difficulty. I would really be curious to know if your body has been tweaked due to a wrong thickness at one of the body bolt locations. Some of them did have shims along with rubber cushion pads and 55 was notorious for body fit issues.

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I was wondering about this too. I've read of guys using shims under the body bolts to get the alignment of the doors right. I'm not sure how it's done or if it would help here, but I wonder if it would?

-Kevin

Well, that is interesting (at least to me it is).

A quick Google search shows me that shimming the body mounts, to align the door frame is fairly common among the tri-5 community.

Just last week I noticed that I still need to reinstall a pair of body mounts that bolt from the underside. They just happen to be right in the middle of the door frame.

Having 2 persons to wrestle the door is a great help. You might try getting the hinges out of the way and setting the door in place in the door opening. Then, working from inside the car, use Gorilla tape or a helper, and cardboard or thin wooden shims under and around the door to align it with the body and fender as closely as possible, looking at the outside of the door. If you can shim it into good alignment, that would indicate that the body opening is close to right.

If you run out of gap around the door without achieving good alignment, the door opening in the body probably needs to be adjusted. Most doors on 50s cars had 1/4 to 3/8 gap between the inner door structure and the door opening on the body.

Temporarily hanging the front fender, leaving the door off, may help indicate where any misalignment in the door opening may be.

Most all old cars I've ever owned have adjustments and shim stacks at various body/fender/door attachment points to allow bringing the body sections and doors, etc, into acceptable alignment.

When I pulled the body off 9 years ago, I dumped all the parts into a box and moved on.
I guess I did not recognize the shims, that I removed, for what they were. I just saw them as washers, I guess, to hold the rubber body mounts together.
That was a few years ago and I had forgotten about them.
Today I started investigating and ended up pulling all the shims out of the body mounts. Every bolt on that side had at least 1 shim. I don't have them all out yet but the 2 photos below show a before and after. There are no hinges installed in these photos.
I am removing all the shims and leaving the bolts loose to see how it sets. Then will start adding shims as needed.

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Feels like its been months but have only been working on shimming the body for 5 days. I probably have 20 hours of this. My knees and back cannot take much more of this up-and-down abuse.

I have made progress on both sides. The gap is off a little at the top as you can see in the pictures but the doors finally close. I still don't have the door seals yet.

Plan to try and mount the right side fender in the next couple days to see how it hangs.

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This was a bear!
I thought I had the door done but when I put the fender on it all went to hell.

I think it will work now. It's not perfect but nothing here is perfect.

I also have the fuel tank hanging in place today.

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