Door alignment

[davchr]

Does anyone have dimesions of the door openings on a 57? The driver's door alignment on my car stinks. It is about 5/16" of an inch at the top rear and ~1/8" at the three other corners. The driver side opening is almost 3/16" larger than the passenger side a the center crease in the door - just above the lock.

I assume that I need to raise the back drivers side of the body to get a decent door gap and latch alignment. I have not been able to find any information on this.

Any help/suggestions?

thanks
Dave Christensen
57 Tbird
69 E type OTS

[gbhrps]

Dave,
You must either have too many shims between the body and the frame at the A pillar, no shims or the incorrect thickness of shims at the B pillar and at all body to frame mounting points towards the rear of the car from the B pillar back, or a bent up frame somewhere in the back half of the car. I would think that by removing the mounting bolts from the B pillar back and reshimming each side of the car separately until you get a good door gap at the top rear of each door should resolve your problem, provided that there hasn't been any frame damage. All body off restorations of small birds in our shop are reassembled with new body rubber/shims that are all of the same thickness, and we've never had the problem you discuss. Question: do you have a continental kit installed on the car, and its extra weight has bent the frame up in the middle of the car?

[davchr]

No continental kit or any obvious frame damage. There were no spacers/shims at the mounting point furthest to the rear.

I loosened up the back 3 mounting points. With a jack I was able to close up the door gap so that both sides have the same opening. Does anyone make correct Tbird shims? If I cannot find them I will use some from left over from the last solid axel vette that I did - assuming the Tbird won't reject Chevy parts!

That is interesting that you assemble them with the same number of shims everywhere. How many do you use at each point? I will check and see how many are at the other mount points.

thanks for your help.
Dave Christensen

[gbhrps]

Dave,
I've been involved in helping put the body back onto the frames of 2 55's in the last 3 years. In both cases the body mount rubber shims that I took out were all the same thickness, and we used brand new bolts and rubber mounts/shims on both, again all of them the same thickness. I don't have the experience to say that that is what you will find on all small birds, but that is what I've seen on the two I worked on at this stage. I know that my own 55 is this way, and that the shims on my 54 MG TF are all over the place as to thickness when it came to getting proper door gaps. It really comes down to being sure that the frame is straight, and then shimming as needed to get the correct gap at the doors. National Parts Depot (2004) catalogue shows Kit T-5008-1K ($21.95) rubber frame insulators & clips, and Installation Kit T-5400-1 body to frame ($27.95), basically bolts washers and nuts.