Inliners International Forums General Discussion Body & Paint Adjusting door with body/frame shims

I just finished putting my '37 2dr sedan body on a redone frame with modern suspension. After spending 1/2 a day getting all the body bolts in, I snugged up the bolts and to my surprise, the doors were hanging down about an inch at the back. There are body to frame mounts even with the hinges and I've been told that I needed to shim them up, which in turn moves the upper portion of the cowl forward and in turn square the doors up in the opening. The door gap at the hinges looked good, so I started shimming, measuring, adding more shims, measuring, and sure enough the back of the doors moved upwards.

What's bothering me is that it appears I may have to shim more than an inch. What am I doing wrong?

Greybeard:
Can you post s few pictures of this project? The body on the frame, and the body mounts would be helpfull.. If you can't get a pic of the mounts, if you can somehow put arrows in the pic..."Mount here" or something.
When the body was off the frame how was it supported?.. And are you sure the new mounts are on the same plane as the old frame? It doesn't take much to twist a body out of shape. Probably a matter of tweaking the mounting points. I'd be real skeptical about using an inch of shims to square up a door if it didn't need it before you took the body off.

Sincerely:
Paul...aka xerxes

When the body was on the old frame, the driver's door fit just a bit low but would close with a push, the passenger door was hanging and required some lift to get it to close, so they needed help to begin with.

When I lifted the body up a wad of washers fell out near the drivers door, so this issue was probably pre-existing. The drivers side floor had metal replaced at one time, and the body mount bracket as found on the passenger side is missing. The floor metal is fairly thick so I surmise they just decided to shim the difference lost when they left the bracket off.

There are two floor support beams that cross under the car, one just infront of the front seat, the other under the seat. When I lifted the body off I used 2X8"s running fore and aft close to the frame under those floor supports close on both sides, and slowly raised the body off the frame installing spacers between body and frame as I went. when I had room to run a 2X12" plank between the body and frame and spaced the 2X8's up to support the body on the plank. I then lifted frame and all high enough to put 20gal barrels [about 24" high] under the ends of the planks. I did somethin similar at the very rear with wood blocks and a plank on barrels, and then just lowered the frame out from under the body, and with little furnature dollys under the rear pulled it out from under and and reversed the prossess with the new frame. Other than the slow lifting and shimming the gapp between the body and frame to get the plank under, the body was only off the frame for a few hours. I would estimate the front plank was just about center under the doors.

I'll try to get some pictures, don't know how to post them however.


The new frame is a '38 and I thought I'd have an issue behind the axle, but measurements seemed to show the rear axle forward to be the same, and all the body bolts went through in the same place. The difference was the trunk areas where the '38 floor was different.

Can you get a measurement off the door opening using a right angle...framing square, or one of those cool new digital levels that gives a readout of the angle, to see if both the openings are the same say from the rear of the opening and bottom sill?
Somewhere you have to establish a level baseline. (can't remember what these look like) I'd try to get it up on jack stands with the frame bubble level. Then proceed from there. If the body is supposed to sit level on the frame (likely), is it?..Then move on to the door sill at the rocker panel. Is it supposed to be level? (perhaps, but maybe not) But is it equal to the other one? Once the frame is level you can, for instance, clamp a piece of steel under the car and use it to make accurate vertical measurements from (can't trust the garage floor) If the garage floor is off by say 1/8 inch it will really mess with your efforts to find the problem and correct it. The plan here is to make a shade tree frame jig. Then you can see with confidence where things are out of level and what is needed to correct it. Probably would be a good idea to do something to replace the missing floor brace as well. It's likely you can get replacements for those.. "Chevs of the Fourties" I think is the name... Someone please correct me on that. Patricks perhaps. There surely is someone who sells them. Or fab one up.

Sincerely:
Paul...aka xerxes