Before you cut your door, your hinges are not on the wrong side of the vehicle or upside down are they?
Door issue, looking for some help
- Thread starter abecker
- Start date
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Possible problem and solution identified
I think I found the reason we are not getting the required clearances for the doors.
Last night, I decided to spend some time with a tape measure and compare #'s to my 40. I found that the difference was the most at the top of the door opening- between the windshield and cab.
I stopped
had a few
's and decided to rethink the whole approach to this pesky problem and go in a new direction. 
Maybe we need to look at Cab to body mounts to see if we are missing something.
I found right away there there are some differences between the mounting heights between my 40 and his 45 frame so I decided to see what would happen if I removed the rear body mount pads from the 45 and low and behold- I got some of it back on the top side when I tightened the bolts beyond the limits the pads were previuosly restricting. I put a strap from the top of the cab to the bumper and put it under a slight tension. As I tightened the rear bolts, the strap began to slacken slightly - bringing the top back towards the rear. It was not much, but this is leading me to believe that the issue may be related to the alignment of the cab to frame.
We did use new pads- $or kit for a 40 - cause no one had a 45 kit- so we did our best with pad sizes during the remounting of the cab and did not see any obviuos distortions when we did it.
. something tangible to now work with!!!!!!
Without a second set of eyes and hands, I decided to wait for backup and Saturday-we will loosen all of the mounts and see if things come back in line.
Thinking I am finally on to something here so we will apply it this weekend.
Gotta love the little things that keep you going.
Tim
I think I found the reason we are not getting the required clearances for the doors.
Last night, I decided to spend some time with a tape measure and compare #'s to my 40. I found that the difference was the most at the top of the door opening- between the windshield and cab.
I stopped
had a few's and decided to rethink the whole approach to this pesky problem and go in a new direction. Maybe we need to look at Cab to body mounts to see if we are missing something.
I found right away there there are some differences between the mounting heights between my 40 and his 45 frame so I decided to see what would happen if I removed the rear body mount pads from the 45 and low and behold- I got some of it back on the top side when I tightened the bolts beyond the limits the pads were previuosly restricting. I put a strap from the top of the cab to the bumper and put it under a slight tension. As I tightened the rear bolts, the strap began to slacken slightly - bringing the top back towards the rear. It was not much, but this is leading me to believe that the issue may be related to the alignment of the cab to frame.
We did use new pads- $or kit for a 40 - cause no one had a 45 kit- so we did our best with pad sizes during the remounting of the cab and did not see any obviuos distortions when we did it.
. something tangible to now work with!!!!!!Without a second set of eyes and hands, I decided to wait for backup and Saturday-we will loosen all of the mounts and see if things come back in line.
Thinking I am finally on to something here so we will apply it this weekend. Gotta love the little things that keep you going
.Tim
What happened to: "I love the sound of a die grinder in the morning..."?
Good news.
Do you have the roof and windshield frame on the cab and securely bolted in place? If not, you may want to do that. It seems like the roof and winshield frame will help to align the rear wall of the cab to the correct vertical position.
- Thread starter
- #65
these are whole other problems! the w/s frame is a '69 and the roof doesn't appear '64 either. these were both on until last weekend. the roof was a bast*** and I'm thinking between the body mount issue and the roof that the cab was at least a little tweaked. We were able to get it all on, but took the roof off and loosened the w/s frame to progress towards getting the doors on.
Man I hope we get this worked out this weekend because things should fly after the doors and roof are all on, in line, etc...I keep thinking about actually driving this thing!
Aaron
Yup, driving it would be a nice change!
Loosen all the bolts, including the mounts, then hang the doors, slowly re-tighten everything (windshield, top, mounts, hinges) sorta like you would torque an engine together, by rotating between parts as you tighten up the bolts slowly until the doors are both squared up. You may need a couple of jacks to help you along.......well...at least this is what I would do.
Keeps us posted
Loosen all the bolts, including the mounts, then hang the doors, slowly re-tighten everything (windshield, top, mounts, hinges) sorta like you would torque an engine together, by rotating between parts as you tighten up the bolts slowly until the doors are both squared up. You may need a couple of jacks to help you along.......well...at least this is what I would do.
Keeps us posted
What happened to: "I love the sound of a die grinder in the morning..."?
Good news.
All options will remain in effect
. This includes torches, hammers, plasma cutters, die grinders, and my favorite tool. The .357 hole puncher. Tim
OK - This thread can die now!!!!
Well - all it took was a few non mentioned specialty tools..................... A hilift jack was used between the A- B pillars to push the distance back out to give us the 1/2 " we needed. Then we used my tractor as a anchor to run a strap from the rear corners through the windshield opening to fine tune the final alignment. This resulted in bringing the A-B pillar measurments back in line at the top and at the latch.
Cab to body and frame dimensions all were within 1/8" from side to side and front to back so we did not have a tweaked frame. It looks like the rear of the cab may have been pushed forward from some unknown event. There was some minor body work we had to do at the rockers just ahead of the B-pillars. They were crushed up from some type of impact - and this may have been an overlooked clue - When we straightend the cab- our replacement lower panel on the drivers side started to buckle slightly - so I just cut it out to prevent any stress on the lower panels( HAH-the die grinder was used Dom) - It will get redone after both the doors and top are on and final fitted.
The passenger side door lines now look perfect- the driver side is hung, but we need to tweak it alittle more to get what we need-it is looking like a little hinge hole modding will give us the extra little adjustments we need to bring it in line to match the other side.
After 9 hours of fussing with fitting- we called it a day and felt we had beaten the "Bitch" ( Aaron's new name for his truck).
Ok so what were lessons we learned from this ?
?
1. Make sure all body panels and doors fit and line up before final paint and body. We took for granted that the door openings were good- eyeballed they look fine, but the slight tapering towards the top was a ball buster. If we had taken the extra step in hanging the doors a few months ago when we were messin with the top - we would have found this out earlier and saved some time.
2. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE- Take your time and make sure you exhaust all available options before resorting to drastic measures. Had we not been patient and tried some different and unique approaches to solving the problem, we may have damaged a set of perfectly good doors and that would have resulted in more time, effort, and money.
And it also would have made us look like a couple of tards
.
3. Dont be afraid to ask for help- The information we received from you guys was another thing that called for some real due dilligence. The consistent measurements and pictures really helped and kept the urge to cut and grind our way outtta this at bay.
Many thanks to all of you who responded and provided the information we asked for and I sure hope this helps someone else out in the future.
Tim
All options will remain in effect
Tim
Well - all it took was a few non mentioned specialty tools..................... A hilift jack was used between the A- B pillars to push the distance back out to give us the 1/2 " we needed. Then we used my tractor as a anchor to run a strap from the rear corners through the windshield opening to fine tune the final alignment. This resulted in bringing the A-B pillar measurments back in line at the top and at the latch.
Cab to body and frame dimensions all were within 1/8" from side to side and front to back so we did not have a tweaked frame. It looks like the rear of the cab may have been pushed forward from some unknown event. There was some minor body work we had to do at the rockers just ahead of the B-pillars. They were crushed up from some type of impact - and this may have been an overlooked clue - When we straightend the cab- our replacement lower panel on the drivers side started to buckle slightly - so I just cut it out to prevent any stress on the lower panels( HAH-the die grinder was used Dom
) - It will get redone after both the doors and top are on and final fitted. The passenger side door lines now look perfect- the driver side is hung, but we need to tweak it alittle more to get what we need-it is looking like a little hinge hole modding will give us the extra little adjustments we need to bring it in line to match the other side.
After 9 hours of fussing with fitting- we called it a day and felt we had beaten the "Bitch" ( Aaron's new name for his truck).
Ok so what were lessons we learned from this ?
?1. Make sure all body panels and doors fit and line up before final paint and body. We took for granted that the door openings were good- eyeballed they look fine, but the slight tapering towards the top was a ball buster. If we had taken the extra step in hanging the doors a few months ago when we were messin with the top - we would have found this out earlier and saved some time.
2. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE- Take your time and make sure you exhaust all available options before resorting to drastic measures. Had we not been patient and tried some different and unique approaches to solving the problem, we may have damaged a set of perfectly good doors and that would have resulted in more time, effort, and money.
And it also would have made us look like a couple of tards
. 3. Dont be afraid to ask for help- The information we received from you guys was another thing that called for some real due dilligence. The consistent measurements and pictures really helped and kept the urge to cut and grind our way outtta this at bay.
Many thanks to all of you who responded and provided the information we asked for and I sure hope this helps someone else out in the future.
Tim
And it also would have made us look like a couple of tards
WOULD have?....
Nice problem solving.
Used the tractor?? dammit thats funnay
WHEW!!
Close call there.
A collective sigh of relief from Mud.
Close call there.
A collective sigh of relief from Mud.
- Thread starter
- #75
...really glad I didn't have to find new doors!
I just wanted to say thanks to all those helping us through his. There were at least 10 people chiming in. Some responses may have seemed more concrete than others but all prompted us to try different things or think in different ways. I'm really thankful for those that posted anything up.
miker - yours should work
....and now for the pic -
I just wanted to say thanks to all those helping us through his. There were at least 10 people chiming in. Some responses may have seemed more concrete than others but all prompted us to try different things or think in different ways. I'm really thankful for those that posted anything up.
miker - yours should work
....and now for the pic -
Nice pics. Have you guys decided what you are using for the rubber that connects the tank to the filler neck?
Great news!
How long before you think it's going down the road under it's own power?
How long before you think it's going down the road under it's own power?
That's not the first time we used it- nor will it be the last. The tractor is my favorite tool and I use it for everything.......................including slaughtering pigs
.
- Thread starter
- #80
haven't gotten that far yet....hopefully the kind that works
all depends on available free time. limited to Saturdays now, the rest of the days require work to earn cruiser funds. The other thing is weather. Once the cab is built we're gonna spray another coat of paint, need a nice 70F day as we paint outside. Then its windshield, wiring, start work on the bed....maybe 3 months from now it'll be on the road??