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Not sure how visible it will be in the picture, but my right front door seems to be a bit warped. It sticks out, away from the body at the lower rear of the door. It fits decently at the top and along the front fender.

The striker plate is fine and the latch works as it should.

What is involved in making the door fit better?

Any thoughts on the correct procedure and costs would be appreciated....

P.S.
The "b" pillar trim has been fixed.... No need to get off topic there....

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Pat, I have heard of folks using a turnbuckle to fit body panels. This should be easy enough of a fix to put in place inside of the door. Just a suggestion...

(o{}o)

If door had been removed for restoration or collision repair, somebody didn't adjust it properly after installation.

They should have aligned things working from rear to front.

That is, in this case, you adjust the front door hinges and striker to get best fit of the trailing edge of the front door to the leading edge of the B-pillar. Then, adjust front fender fastenings at the cowl panel, top and bottom, to align the trailing edge of the front fender with the leading edge of front door.

Though not that common, additional tweaking of the door shell may be necessary, but should only be done by an experienced bodyman.

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.

On taking a close up view of the picture it appears the door just needs to be adjusted in at the bottom. This should not take long.

It also appears the chrome was installed somewhat hastily and could do with some adjusting.

Camera angles can be tricky so I could be all wet on this, but it appears the door is not too far out of whack and could be adjusted in under an hour.

If the fender needs to be brought in at the bottom that is not usually too hard, there may be 2 or 3 bolts at the bottom of the fender that are slotted for adjustment. If they are not rusted solid, or the fender has not been patched this is easy to adjust.

Much appreciated!

Pat, above comments all make sense, so hope your problem can be fixed using those good methods. However - IF you have a door that for some unknown reason is 'warped' out of shape and just cannot be 'adjusted' to fit then you have two choices: get another door, or manipulate that one so as to restore original shape (- that is, remove the twist in it).

An expert panel beater / car restorer I know has shown me what most shops do to fix a mildly warped panel. You must apply 'equal and opposite pressure' any reasonable way you can. So IF it's a twisted door a couple of you will need to assess and then apply whatever pressure you need to put on it to 'untwist' it. Sounds crude, but usually works, and often is easily achieved as whatever became warped can be made unwarped in short time!

It's worth a try for such disfigured panels. Some Packard panels are easily coaxed back to their proper original shape manually (- or with a turnbuckle arrangement / 'porta-power, etc etc). So I suggest that you give it a try if the prognosis is a twisted or warped door. Best of luck with the repair on your very nice car!

I've looked at an awful lot of 51-56 Packards in the last 40 years, and doors that stick out a bit at the bottom are quite common, especially on the 2 doors. So you can just call it an original feature, go back in the house and have another cup of coffee.

Someone would have to be very good to tweak the door without having to repaint it. If you can find a 49-54 Chrysler product shop manual, there is a picture of an amazing contraption they had for doing this job. But of course, they had Briggs bodies also.

Given the mounting style of the hinges you might get partial joy by putting a thin shim at the top hinge mount to bring the top of the door out slightly as it seems it is well in, then move the striker in a hair.

There should be no need to paint anything. The doors were made to be adjusted. It is a fairly simple matter for an experienced bodyman to adjust for perfect fit. As long as the body has not been distorted by a major wreck or poor rust repair in the past. It is not necessary to bend or twist the door.