It's getting to be time to put in my redone hinges, my doors are o.k. but drop 3/16"'s or so when you open them and the drivers door makes a springy sound which just isn't right. It's not new, but I may be finally getting around to it.

I believe Joe P said he's never replaced door hinges without pulling the front fenders, but the '66 Fisher Body Manual has a procedure for loosening fenders to create a gap big enough to turn wrenches in for the X bodies and A bodies. Have any of you tried the loosening method for big cars from 60's?

Wondering if any of you big car people have ever replaced door hinges without removing the fenders.

There seems to be one broken bolt in my drivers door upper hinge, that may seal the deal for pulling at least that fender to get a screw extractor in and fix it properly.

I suspect the right way is the high effort, long hours pull-the-fenders version, but I'm wondering if there's a shortcut.

All that removing without chipping and scratching finish paint and reinstallation alignment has me a little timid.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Chris

 

Never did it on big car, but many times on A body. Can't believe there is much difference. The big problem is getting to the bolts.I use a combo of sockets, open ends, ratchet box, and had to buy a S shape box, between all these I got the job done,as far as adjusting, not sure you could replace all the bolts?

 

Does this car have the hex head bolts or the phillips head bolts? The latter are pretty much impossible to remove without unfettered access.

 

Joe
Thanks for looking.

This car uses the 1/2” hex head bolts on the body side, but I think one is broken off.

There is something solid where a bolt hole should be when I probed it with a small hex wrench to see where the hole is. These doors have been adjusted before and I think someone may have gotten unlucky or got frustrated.

I’m guessing 4 hours to pull bumper, hood and fednders, then 8 or more at hobby pace to get the doors right, then 8 or more to reassemble and align the front clip without chipping edge paint. Does that sound about right or optimistic?

thanks
Chrus

 

I think that's fair, ASSUMING you don't have problems with spun clip nuts on the fender bolts. And one hint - remove the striker bolt and adjust the doors without relying on the striker and latch to hold it in place. Once the alignment is correct, use a piece of modelling clay in the latch to gauge how the striker bolt lines up with the latch, and adjust accordingly. This will prevent preload in the latch that can cause the door to hang up when you open it.

 

Courtesy of quarantine, I finally found time to pull my front clip and replace the worn door hinges on my ‘66 98 convertible. Quite a job. 4 days so far at at hobby speed. But I’m fixing window wiring, vacuum door locks, door conduits and other stuff along the way which needed doing.

At least for the big cars, pulling the fenders was the way to go for me. After learning how much time goes into door aligning, I would not have wanted to try wrestling around fenders to get at the adjustment bolts. One of my hinge bolts was indeed broken off, so before reassembly, I ran all the bolts through a tap & die kit and chased the holes too. Cleaning up 55 year old fasteners was a good idea.

Doors are on and as close as I can get ‘em. Must do the last fender today and get the hood back on. The good news is the doors close as nicely as I can ever remember with the freshened up hinges. They feel right.

Once the panels are back on & aligned, I’m going after my convertible top frame to see if I can get it to sit lower on the windows. Then I’ll finish up with the windows themselves. Busy days ahead.

thanks to all of you for your help & guidance.

Chris

 

Good Job! Feels good to get these "back burner" jobs done, doesn't it? About the only good thing about this Covid 19....

 

Got the hood back on solo this morning.

I built a real Rube Goldberg contraption with a central rope and pulley hoist backed up by 2 ratchet straps for extra safety. Took a while, and was a little scary (120 lbs?) of hard to replace hood dangling 5 feet above the floor.. Waiting to crash, injure me or destroy the fenders...

But it worked.

Now that panels are on, time to tear out the interior and adjust the top and windows to minimize noise.

The procedure recommended to me was replace the hinges, adjust the doors with no strikers and no convertible wedges, then reinstall fenders and hood. This all sets the baseline for adjusting the top correctly and ultimately the windows to minimize noise.

Suggestions most welcome, this is the first time I’ve ever dug this deep into this car I’ve had 35 years...

A long but interesting project. Looking forward to a refreshed 66 98 this Summer!

cheers
Chris

 

The guy that painted my cars told me that since you can’t move the quarter panels, you have to start with the doors. Once the doors have even gaps all around, the door close smoothly, then install the strikers. Once the doors fit well, move on to the fenders. You may need to adjust the core support to get the hood gaps even.

Since your working with a convertible, I’m thinking you will need to get the windows adjusted to fit the A pillars, and the quarter windows. Then once all that’s done, work on the top. I wouldn’t be surprised if you need to go back and tweak the window adjustment again. Good luck!!

 

I’m a complete newbie at this, but yup, align doors to rear quarters and rockers, minus the strikers and convertible wedges; next align fenders to doors, finally hood to fenders. Good tip on the core suppprt.

I’m using ratchet straps to place fenders and my floor jack, then tightening bolts. The jack is imprecise. Ratchet straps looped over my garage I-beams work well as temporary precise hoists. Hoist and/or jack precision is key to get gaps and alignment right.

Today I learned that S-shaped wrenches are very useful if adjusting doors with fenders on.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to do final fender adjustment, then on to the top hinge adjustment. Then windows.

I’ve been shimming my roof rail rubber down to meet the doors for years. This time I’m hoping to properly locate the up/down and fore/aft of the top, then fit the windows to the top.

Maybe then I’ll get to see how quiet convertibles can get...

Fun!

cf

 

For years I've been compensating for sagging door hinges by pushing the window glass further "up". I also shimmed the top roof rail rubber "down" onto the glass. This approach was a good band-aid but created other alignment problems. That worked, o.k., but I've been curious about resetting the door aligment baseline for a long time -- to see just how good things could get if I did it by-the-book. I finally had enough garage time due to the virus lockdown here in CA.

I finished the door hinge project and related convertible top and window projects yesterday. I'll post a few things I learned, but I thought this would be a good place to confirm that the logic communicated to me by John Osborn of Osborn Interiors was quite sound.

His process was 1) replace the door hinges, 2) align the doors, 3) then align the fenders to the doors, 4) align the top and 5) finish up with the windows. As far as I can tell this is correct.

The door hinge replacement was preceded by the pull-the-front-clip project. Hinge placement was quick. Then it was the door alignment project (long), then fender alignment, then top alignment finished up by window aligment. It was fun working on parts of the car I'd never touched like the door hinges and the mysterious top hinges behind my back seat.

I'm no pro, but I'm happy to report that wind noise is indeed down. Windows roll up tight, seal, and stop where they should. Door glass to quarter glass interface gaps are uniform and there is just enough pressure between the windows and against the roof rail rubber to create a good seal. Rattles are gone, aging wiring is repaired, and new rubber wiring conduits found their way onto the car to keep things dry and covered for another 20 years.

I'm a little less happy that I still needed roof rail rubber shims to make the rubber tight to the glass. Maybe I'm just looking for tighter fit than GM built to back in those days, maybe my top is still not quite right, but I can't get much further on the top without redoing it yet again for the 3rd time in 5 years, so I'm going to live with it for a while.

Anyway if you have a 65-70 big car, keep an eye out for my posts as I get round to writing up what I did in case some of you can use it too. What you see here should apply to Olds convertible big cars (88’s, Starfire and 98) from 65-70. The principles should apply to other GM makes of that era like Pontiac Bonnevilles, Catalinas, 2+2’s, Cadillacs and Buick Wildcats and Electra 225’s.

cheers
cf