Driver door alignment

[jpav]

Hey all. New here, been watching for a couple months, but now reasons to post some questions on here.

2006 Expedition Limited was purchased used. Previous damage to the door area. Looks like it has tweaked the lower hinge mount so the top of the door doesn't seal on the weatherstrip.

Got an estimate and with removal of all parts, a time on the frame puller, comes to about $1200 repair.

The pull is on the lower a pillar below the lower door hinge. I went in thinking maybe some shim could be added for alignment and stop the little drip drip drip that started in the rain.

Any other ideas? I'm tempted to try and take off the kick panel inside, and pound on it to try and push it out a bit, but not sure if that'd do anything.

Thanks,
Josh

 

[1955moose]

You might look into some of the shims available for fenders. Gm used to use them back in the day. They also used shims for their small block Chevy 350 starters. Their available separately in the help sections at most auto parts stores. For $1200.00 I'd give the shims a try. Their cheap to buy. If it doesn't work, your only out a few bucks, and probably can return them.

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[Trainmaster]

You can try a few washers first and if it's promising, go for the shims.

 

[jpav]

Thought about shims. I just can't see an easy way to get in there to try it. So, I had hoped the body shop would offer that as a cheaper but not factory perfect option. I've only installed doors on older cars, and this door looks to be very heavy.

Looks to me like it was fender damage, and the door wasn't touched, but the mounting surface for the lower hinge was pushed in just ever so slightly so there is now maybe a 1/8"-1/4" gap along the top of the door to the top rear edge. Compared to the other front side, it looks like such a minor adjustment, so maybe a shim will work if I can get my hands and tools in there.

Anyone on here ever removed the driver door, and offer any tricks to help get in there correct? It would appear it is easier to mount the hinge first to the body, then to the door? Just trying to decide if I shim it if I should try and shim door side, or body side.

Thanks


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[jpav]

Looked online for cheap shims and noticed harbor freight has a set. I'll visit as I'm sure having them in hand can't hurt, and seems cheaper than the online sources (plus a reason to get another free flashlight and use a 20% off coupon).

If I can get in there, hope to try and mark current position with pencil in case it moves, but really hope the top hinge can keep it from dropping during my adjustments. Up down adjustment is good, just hopefully can push the bottom hinge out enough to push the top of the door in, without changing the top line or striker alignment. $8.99 for shims, or less with coupon, is better than the $1260.28 shop estimate. Nice having Less than a couple mikes away for stuff like this.


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[1955moose]

Always mark your door or hood before any adjustment. Shims usually have one side that is slotted or open, that's why I recommended Chevy starter shims, so you loosen bolt, slide in shim, tighten bolt. You may have to cut other end of shim, use a pair of sharp diagonal cutters so just the open end is left. Basically cut in half. All your doing is loosening bolt a little at a time to slip in shim. Put a floor Jack under door with a block of wood so you don't Mar paint, and play with different thickness till you get a closer fit.

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[jpav]

Ok, looked at the hinge area further after getting the shims at HF. Looks like the hard part is going to be getting a tool in there to loose the bolt. I noticed the inner fender cover was not attached, and looking from the door side, looks like if I take that inner plastic off, I'll have ok access to get a wrench or socket in there.

The way the damage is, it really only pushed in the bolt towards the rear the most. There are 3 bolts on the body side of the hinge, and the front two look close the position of the other front side, but that rear one is in 1/4" or so. Hard to tell, someone did an ok job on panel alignment, so it is hard to tell from the outside, but I hope I'll be able to get the shims to push it enough away from the body, to then have that roll the top edge back into place.

My concern on this not being "perfect" is that the hinge currently sits on a large flat area even if only bolted at 3 points, and that flat area I'm sure provides some of the support of repeated open and closes. Will report back if I get inner fender off, loose the parts, and make an adjustment. Hard to get a picture, but if I can take a picture, will certainly add it here, as I'm sure I'm not the only one that will, or has, tried to get a door adjusted for cheap. The HF kit is typical fender type shims, 1/64", 1/32", 1/16", 1/8" and a good number of each. I'll start big, and work from there if is easy to do.

Thanks for the floor jack idea. It has always been a 2 or 3 person process to try and do it on older cars, just these doors seem so much heavier.

 

[jpav]

Ok, inner fender removed, tire turned out of the way to access lower hinge from wheel well area. Just needed to shim the one bolt furthest to the rear to fix most of the bend, so just loose that one (13mm seemed to fit better than 1/2" not sure if that is the size or if it was the paint on the bolt head that made it hard to get a 1/2" wrench on there). With the angle on a box wrench, pretty easy to get little movement in there, but would have been better with ratcheting wrench (only have 1/2" no metric for those). Used a little wedge of wood, some force on the door, and carefully backed out the top front bolt a bit to allow a 1/16" shim to slip in there. Used another shim to push it in to place, pulled the wood wedge, and tightened things up. Lots of slow checks and pushes all along to make sure it was going to work.

I likely could use another 1/32" or 1/64" shim added in there to make it better, but I'm going to see how this works for now. Trying to stack a thin shim in there is going to be a lot harder than if I had it as all one piece, and the next size up is 1/8" which I think would be too much.

Pictures don't show anything as it is hard to get in there to see (dark in the hinge area), but the top of the door did push over about 80% of what I wanted just by adding the little 1/16" behind the lower bolt on the bottom hinge. Will see with a few days of using it, and if we get more rain, how it holds up. The top seal on the roof rail isn't perfect, but the one that seals to the door passes a dollar bill test (if I don't pull too hard). That top rail rubber had a little cut in it about 2" long, that I'm going to try and repair, since I can't find replacements (so likely dealer only $$$$) and the rest of the seal looks good. I'm thinking formagasket type stuff or something to keep it from tearing further. Local pick and pull has an 03 that just came in there a few days ago, so may try that too since I need a bunch of fasteners.

I spent more time taking off and putting back on the inner fender plastic (lots of fasteners were missing, and I don't have the correct size screws in stock in my garage to fill all the holes back up, but I've got it better now than it was too, since it was only held on by 2 screws and no christmas tree fasteners before I started.

Better than the $1260 shop estimate. Not perfect, but it was under $10 for shim and fastener set that I'll need for other things anyhow.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

 

[1955moose]

Glad it worked out. Grab a whole rubber door seal while at wreckers. That way you can use the whole thing or cut up part. These vehicles use metric nuts/bolts throughout is why your 13 mm fit, and 1/2 inch was tight. 13mm is roughly .012 of inch larger, just enough. You might consider buying a single 13 mm cheaper ratcheting wrench to speed it up if you go back in. You'll use that wrench again, trust me.

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