So I am working through the right side Sheetmetal on my 72 vert. Rehung the door, keying alignment off of the QP. Gap width at rear of door varies a little, but I have seen worse. About 3/16” + or -. Today, temporary installed the fender. Just starting to sort out the door/fender gap which is currently about 3/8”. Which to me seems excessive. One thing I notice, is that near the top of the door, when opening the door, the clearance goes down to 1/16” or so. The geometry of the hinge and contour of the door create a pinch point. If I try to tighten up the gap, I will need to back trim metal or otherwise rework the gap to allow the door to operate without scrubbing off new paint.

Wondering how some of you have dealt with this issue? When I look at online pics, I see a wide variation.


Current status



At the QP some variation in gap width, but manageable either by welding, or just livin with it.



At the Fender. I think I can get it a little better by moving the door out just a little at the top.


Checking some online pics, I see just one car with what looks to be a perfect gap at both ends of the door.


This car has had some good attention to detail. But I would really like to be there and see what happens when the door is opened.



Gap at hinge looks to be twice the gap at the left end of door



This one too.



This car looks pretty good. But looks wide at both ends of the door.



This one obviously wide at front, narrow at back

 

Here are 2 pages from the PIM assembly manual showing target gap widths.

Rodney

 

It looks like your quarter panels have been replaced, so the first question is, how accurate was the location of those?

 

Rodney, thanks a bunch! I think you have convinced me that I should have an Assembly Manual in my possession. Been thinking on it, I just need to do it. Reviewing those two pages shows some interesting helpful things. Page 200 Section AA tells me that the front door is flush to .040” recessed. The actual Section Cut line appears to be just above the vertical break line, but not sure? If the door is recessed the .040 that will probably provide the clearance to allow the door to open without the pinch point becoming a pinch. Also, the vertical gap width is given at .220 with a plus tolerance of .040. So total front gap allowed is .260. I wish there was a door bottom gap provided. Perhaps on page 201? I am buying the Manual, today.

I didn’t get to work on the car yesterday. Driveway blocked by two trees blown down in a thunderstorm, and debris all over the landscape, so storm cleanup day. And two more days needed to get back to zero. Maybe later today?

 

Joe, again as above, it would be interesting to take a look at the Assembly Manual regarding QP placement. I can say for certain that the factory QP at the jamb area is direct spot welded to heavy underlying door post structure, contoured to fit the QP. No shims involved anywhere, that I found, anywhere during disassembly of the old QP. It appeared to me that the QP was placed over this heavy structure, pushed inward until the QP contacts this structure, then pushed downward until the QP contacts the Rocker. The rear of the QP hooks other structure, at the front of the Tip Extensions, previously put in place. So not much forward and aft movement of the QP is possible, that I could see anyway. The QP also starts interacting with the arc area of the convertible top. In short, what I saw was that the whole QP fits like a glove on a hand. There is availability of moving the panel inward and outward, in places, but fore and aft movement didn’t seem to be possible, without dissection and welding.

I elected to buy the $600 Chinese QP. And for sure it is possible that it isn’t a perfect match of the original. I used the old QP’s as templates to rework the location points for the vent, door latch pin, and Rear Glass gasket. I was able to find two NOS QP’s. $5200 to my door, but this is just a fun (so far) hobby car, and hard to justify the cost of NOS parts.


I took measurements between door and QP before disassembly. Even then, there was not a consistent panel gap. I would expect it to be a straight line taper if there was door sag, and not variable gaps.


It is interesting for me to see that the front gap on my car, with a factory door and fender, varies by .070”. Both parts are in plane. The info Rodney provided would lead me to believe that the gap should be consistent between the two parts, with minimal variance.

Dealing with this leads me to believe that I can go two ways with this. I can adjust it out best I can and live with it, or get the welding shop involved and make it look like the Assembly Manual intended.

Anyway, after I get the storm cleanup corralled, I’ll review Rodney’s diagrams and report back. Gonna take a while


steve

 

So finally able to do a little more door alignment work today.

Posted it in the bodywork area if interested

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...5/#post1643739

 

A question. Are you done with painting and body work. I know I will be taking doors and fenders off a couple more times. I get everything so they open and close with nothing hitting anywhere. I will do the final when everything is done. No sense in ripping out my hair more than once. Just a thought.

 

No sir, I am going through the entire car on a rust, dent, ding removal and replacement crusade. I was on a fast track with hopes of getting the car to a pro painter to shoot the color later this fall. But some health issues are likely to derail that dream?

Once I get an area fixed to my satisfaction, I am sealing up the open metal with two coats of PPG Omni epoxy primer. I currently have the right side just about done. Left QP is in place. So still have the left door and fender to work through. Hood and trunk are mostly OK.

I am trying to get the fitting done in this phase of work. Not something I want to final adjust after the finish painting.

I index assembly points such as doors, trunk, hood in one way or another after the adjusting so that I can remove items, paint a door jamb, hood, trunk, then rehang these items in minutes rather than a day.


Here is an example of how I indexed the doors. Read these three posts on door fitting. @Vintage Chief showed me how to link direct to a post😀. Hood hinges, trunk hinges etc can all be creatively marked in one way or another to make removal and repeat adjustments easier.

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...5/#post1641738

 

So….I think I have the right side panel gaps to where I am willing to accept them. Not perfect, but close. Front gap is within the Oldsmobile gap spec of .220” plus .040” minus 0”. Rear door gap is mostly at .220”. These will tighten a little, I would expect, with application of urethane primer, base coat, clear coat. I am a believer that probably better to be looser than tighter. I did cut apart the lower 8” of the fender where it bulged outward, about .040”. Looks like the fender was made that way. Left fender looks similar. Something I will always look for when looking at 68-72 cars.


One thing I did to open up the pinch points at top of door, was to set fender just a little higher than the door. This is actually shown on the Assembly Manual page that Rodney posted.



Just this small offset, per factory spec, is what makes the close gaps between door and fender work.



This is the door/fender gap, before my rework. It is hard to see but the fender appeared to be built with a small offset that starts about 8” up from the bottom. It is in an area that isn’t real noticeable, and perhaps I should have just left it alone, but I didn’t.



Carpenters scribes. Very useful for transferring a line from one panel to another. I set the scribe width to the wide gap just above the fender bulge.



Pencil line on fender is where I want the gap. So….i pulled the fender and cut it open enough to widen the gap.



The door/QPgap was pretty good, and consistent, except where the QP bends inward, about where the red tape is. Lots of ways I could remedy this. Cutting, welding….



Looked like maybe the QP was bent incorrectly, just a tiny little bit. I took a 2” square piece of soft wood, and sanded a little radius to match the QP fold line, and whacked it with a hammer, several times. Worked pretty well.



This did make one of the spot welds show its face. Easily dealt with



Fender cut and tack welded in what I wanted for final gap width. Put the fender back on the car to verify before final welding.



I liked the fit, so welded it up, ground it down, filed a radius on the front side to match original profile. Cleaned it all up, reprimed with epoxy to protect while I finish the left door and fender.



So here is the entire right side. New Chinese QP, Door cleaned up and repaired, SS trim attach studs ground away, speaker hole repaired. Original fender with rust repair just behind the wheel. Numerous dents, dings, etc. Probably two gallons of Bondo was on this side of the car. All gone now. Other than perhaps a cup full used here and there, and much of that sanded away. I am happy with this. Look forward to getting started on left door and fender. Probably a winter project

 

So, back surgery is stalling the car work. But getting better I think?

Before the hospital visit I went to several local car shows mostly to try and look at the 68-72 Olds body panel fitups. Both doors, but also trunk and hood gaps. My final takeaway is that from what I saw, if the door, trunk, hood closes without hitting metal on metal, then it was a done deal. I will say that Olds cars are rare, at least Eastern Iowa. Lucky to see one or two at a show with over 200 cars. My trunk lid is about 1/4” at edges and about 1/8” at the top. Most cars I saw, GM A bodies of the period were the same. Saw a few well over 1/4” wide too. I am still thinking of bringing mine back to closer to 1/8” all the way around.

Looking at door fitups was sometimes laughable. Took a few pics. My takeaway lots what I saw at shows.


Hurst Olds front door. Tapers top to bottom. Not bad, and most people would never notice



Same car at rear of door. Nice fit, but looks tighter than the factory gap spec of .220”



Front door on this car is slightly tapered top to bottom but not bad really.



It the rear end of the door has the SS edge protection in place. Hard to see, but it was metal on metal at the rear of the door.



Again, a taper top to bottom. And a pretty tight fit really.



Rear of door looks like it is within Olds spec of.220 plus .040”



Nearly every Olds from 68-72 was wide at the top, and tight at the bottom. I could see some of the reason why while working on my right fender. There is an offset in the fender line that starts about 8-10” up from bottom. Left fender is same way. So my conclusion is that the factory fender dies made them that way. And since the fender bends inward and more out of view, no effort was ever made to upgrade quality control.



Rear end, same car, nice fit.

 

For some reason the 69’s almost all original cars that I have seen. Have a larger gap at the top of the fender and door. Especially on the drivers side like mine did.
You are doing a Great job your 72 is looking good. 😁

 

Thanks! Yes. I have seen the same thing at car shows that I attend. I never bothered looking before I got to that aspect of the car. My fenders, right and left, both had about a 040-060” joggle about 8-10” up from bottom. The fenders seem to be made that way. I just got done cutting this area of the left fender, bending parts to open the gap to match above, and then re-welding the joint. I still think that since this is mostly low on the fender where the fender bends inward, that it isn’t noticed by many people. You and others may also be showing the effects of totally worn out upper hinge bushings. They are nylon. My left door had a full 1/16” of wiggle in the hinge, allowing the door to sag a lot. Some previous owner had “adjusted” this. By hinge relocation.