AuthorTopic: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.  (Read 5709 times)

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Offline lyinlow

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Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« on: August 17, 2014, 08:06:28 PM »
I've got my cab squared and the drivers door closes really nice.. However the passenger door is terrible... Looking for suggestions on this one. Here's the pics...


Also curious how you align the body lines on these cars... The cowl is square to the car so I can't tip the top of the cowl out or the door gap is wayy out...


Hope someone can shed some light on this for me

Thanks!!!

Offline lowboy

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2014, 04:37:54 AM »
sometimes if you put a 2x4 under the door and pry up bending the hinges will help with the body lines and not hurt the front lines
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Offline Rubberhead

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2014, 04:44:38 AM »
When I got my 30 Tudor, it had little internal structure and was like a wet noodle, so I put it on some 4X4's to work with it. I had similar issues with the doors and it can be a real head scratcher for sure as when you try something, nothing seems to move as you anticipate that it will. What worked for me was using blocks to shim the body just under the A pillars and using clamps as necessary. I then added some internal structure to the body behind the A pillars and created some adjusters at the top of the A pillars. This allowed me to align the doors and once I removed the shims, everything stayed in place. The doors now fit perfectly. Here are some old pics; in the first one, you can see the shim blocks under the A pillars and the second one is the cowl adjusters that I created - I hope that this helps you out:
« Last Edit: August 18, 2014, 04:48:32 AM by Rubberhead »

Offline hotwheels

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2014, 07:40:42 AM »
awesome information, thanks.
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Offline lyinlow

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Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2014, 08:11:41 AM »
Awesome info I'll try it Thing is if I tip the cowl forward it almost lets the door fall into the opening... I'll keep ya posted!

Offline Rubberhead

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2014, 09:01:17 AM »
You're going to have to play with it for sure. I would try shimming under the A pillar and clamping the body down at the B pillar. This should effectively raise the cowl without tilting it forward. You might need to clamp the cowl down forward of the shim blocks to keep things square.

Offline lyinlow

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Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2014, 03:50:33 PM »
Yup gonna try that!!!  Just not sure how the threaded rod kept the a pillar up? I would think it would control the forward and backward?    On e you got the lines lined up how did you keep it true? Just the threaded rod?

Offline Rubberhead

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2014, 04:32:25 PM »
That's correct, the adjusters are just for forward and aft adjustment to raise and lower the back of the doors; of course as you know, this will also move the whole door forward or aft as well. Once I had some internal structure added to the top of the body and the adjusters installed, I was able to remove any clamps and shims from the drivers side and everything stayed in place. On the passenger side however, I had to screw the forward end of the cowl down to the 4X4 as it wanted to raise up slightly. I'm still building my floor structure, but once that's all welded in, it should all stay in place but even if it moves a little, bolting it to the frame should take care of that.

Offline lyinlow

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Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2014, 09:06:45 PM »
Perfect that makes sense!   I went out to the shop for a few minutes tonight and quickly messed around.  I have my body up on my frame table so I put a 1" tube under the a puller on both sides and it made a huge improvement..  I'm thinking I'll start by building some reinforcement above the doors.  Is yours a 28? Curious if you have a build thread or a picture of straight on where your adjusters are. As I don't have the piece above my windshield...  Appears you fabricated the whole area where the adjusters are...

Thinking I'm going to clamp my body Down onto the frame table and start shimming..  By my quick messing around I'm thinking 1/2"-1" should get this thing into shape!

Thanks so much for your advice!  Feel free to look me up on facebook or Instagram.   
Lyinlow on Instagram


Thanks again!
Trevor Bradfield

Offline Rubberhead

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2014, 04:21:59 AM »
I was pretty amazed at how much difference a little shimming made; I was scratching my head for days trying to square this thing up. Mine is a 30 and no, I don't have a build thread. Below is a pic of the area from straight on but I believe that there are some differences between 28 and 30. Even so, the same principle applies. The structure that you see is all factory structure except for the adjusters and square tubing, I just removed the rivets, slotted the holes and added bolts on the horizontal piece for forward and aft adjustment and added a doubler to the inside surface. The passenger side was missing everything, so I just fabricated a mirror image of everything that I had for the drivers side.

I'll look you up on facebook.

Scott
« Last Edit: August 19, 2014, 04:34:34 AM by Rubberhead »

Offline obama

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2014, 07:48:00 AM »
Nice job on the adjusters, thanx for the photo's.

Offline Rubberhead

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Re: Door fitment on a 28 Tudor.
« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2014, 05:46:32 PM »
Thanks Obama, no problem.

It turns out that that the next Fast N' Loud episode on Monday the 25th will include a 31 Model A coupe that has door issues just like yours lyinlow. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with it.