Good evening, all-

After replacing both doors and a subsequent full respray, my doors don't fully close. I've tried adjusting the striker to their most inboard position but there's still half an inch or so of slop. I read a thread elsewhere on the forum that suggests the window frames can get bent out of spec and a firm grip on the door body and firm pressure on the frame can bend the metal back in place. Is that my next step, or is there something I haven't thought of yet?

Thanks!

 

Did you put new door seals on?

 

Yes, sorry. Should have specified. All seals have been installed.

 

Do the doors have the right gap on the door sections below the windows or is the gap all around? If you are seeing the gaps at the edge and top of the windows, then the frames may need to be adjusted to make a seal. Tricky business that.

 

This sounds like the frame-bending thing I was reading about. Not a procedure I'd look forward to. I'll have to check again when I get back out to the garage, but I think the slop feels even all the way around. The doors latch just fine, but there's a lot of wiggling afterward.

 

Is it the door hinges by chance? My uncle recently had to adjust his as it was misaligned after swapping out doors.

 

If you used NEW door seals they need to "seat" in. Meaning they need to lose some of their volume. This is done when the door is closed and they compress to form.

 

I had a gap in the window frame portion of my driver side door and had to bend the frame inward a bit in order to get rid of that. In my case the body of the door and the rest of the car were perfectly aligned and there was no slop once the door was shut, just the gap around the front of the window frame.

The way I bent it was to open the window all the way and put a broomstick through the window from the outside. This allowed me to very carefully apply progressive force against the outside of the upper door frame levering against the inside of the door. From the inside of the door with the door open, I pulled on the stick edging the door frame inward.

The gap was about a quarter of an inch to start. It worked really well and I did not crack any welds.

If you have slop all around the entire door though I think you have a different problem.

 

I've done similar to what @Toruki described. I wonder if your hinges need adjustement. I think they have obling mounts so they can be move a bit, but not sure.

 

Gap is consistent all the way around, so it's not the upper frame bent out of spec. I'll try to putz around with the hinges tomorrow to see if I can get everything nice 'n tight.

 

A bit of fiddling with the hinges and the striker got them to close just fine. Thanks for the help, fellas!