Front Door Alignment........

[losh1971]

Firstly thank you to all that have responded on this thread.

A few of you have clearly observed what I have already contemplated. The previous door (the original one) sat perfectly thus why I reused those pins and not the ones that came from the replacement door. When I replaced the door I had to lower the strike plate by around 2mm so that the door would close smoothly without any striker clash.

So from here as a few of you have noticed already, that the door gaps are very even all around and this really surprises me as the doors and hinges are all welded on using jigs which will make every door and every body exactly the same, thus this means there should be no issues apart from moving and wearing parts such as hinge pins which I will have a go at replacing with brand new ones which I have a bag of on hand but didn't use due to the original door having no issues.

The only way I can see out of this is to mill around 1.5~2mm off the top surface of the door hinge (both top and bottom hinge stubs) and then insert a washer with the same thickness of material removed from above to below the hinge stub, thus this will lift the door evenly. Honestly why this needs to be done absolutely mystifies me as it's not an Asian made copy that I'm fitting and would expect to have to muck around with alignment issues.

Would love to hear thoughts on what I've proposed above.

I now understand what you have going on now. I thought you just had the classic VS door sag which gets fixed the way I suggested. But yeah if the whole door is sitting lower, then the way you propose is the easiest way. It would be very hard to set up the doors and reposition the hinges as you would need a factory jig to do that. It's a shame they didn't at least give us one side of the hinge bolted on, you could have then adjusted the hinge.

 

[grey_hawk]

I obviously hadn't had a look at my own hinges...no bolt holes at all.
The joys of mass production.

 

[Dayvo]

On more than one occasion when i worked at GMH cars were taken off the production line to have the hinges cut out and re welded due to the jig not being correctly fitted or clamped to the body when hinge was welded on.

 

[Immortality]

Firstly thank you to all that have responded on this thread.

A few of you have clearly observed what I have already contemplated. The previous door (the original one) sat perfectly thus why I reused those pins and not the ones that came from the replacement door. When I replaced the door I had to lower the strike plate by around 2mm so that the door would close smoothly without any striker clash.

So from here as a few of you have noticed already, that the door gaps are very even all around and this really surprises me as the doors and hinges are all welded on using jigs which will make every door and every body exactly the same, thus this means there should be no issues apart from moving and wearing parts such as hinge pins which I will have a go at replacing with brand new ones which I have a bag of on hand but didn't use due to the original door having no issues.

The only way I can see out of this is to mill around 1.5~2mm off the top surface of the door hinge (both top and bottom hinge stubs) and then insert a washer with the same thickness of material removed from above to below the hinge stub, thus this will lift the door evenly. Honestly why this needs to be done absolutely mystifies me as it's not an Asian made copy that I'm fitting and would expect to have to muck around with alignment issues.

Would love to hear thoughts on what I've proposed above.

That is what I would do as the whole door looks to be sitting down a few mm, but have a look, there might already be a gap at the top of the hinge from wear and tear over the years. Might also pay to just get new hinge pins whilst your at it.

 

[vs-lover]

Thanks again to all that have replied.

Yes I am going to mill about 1.5 mm off the top of both upper and lower hinge butts that are welded on to the door body and raise the overall height and pack them upwards with 1.5mm thick washers on the underside. I'll then use two new hinge pins and all should be pretty much perfect again.

Yes as someone previously said, the joys of unskilled work and mass production, something this country has never been good at, especially on Mondays or Fridays.

 

[mirrabucca]

Some very good advice ther, and worth following.
The irony is that in a lot of cases the changes to production methods are done to allow for more unskilled labour.
It takes a lot less skill to put on a door that has no adjustment.
It takes a lot less skill to plug in a wiring harness (made elsewhere) than it does to fit and set up accelerator cables, and transmission TV cables etc. That old-fashion stuff requires skill for adjustment and a lot of time.
Plugging in electric cable harnesses does not.