Rear ambulance door - new seal, won't close

[Vae Victus]

On my 1976 FJ40 I have a new rear sill, repaired rear doors and have replaced the weatherstripping on the back with OEM, new paint etc. etc.

I put the new weatherstripping on about two years ago. The left door will close just fine on the ambulance doors but the right door was extremely hard to close. So I loosened everything up as best I could and got the door closed and left it for about a year thinking that the weatherstripping would seat and compress a bit. But upon opening it it still was impossible to re-close.

I noticed that the bottom is where it drags, so much so that it pulled the weatherstripping away from the metal so now I have to reseal it.

My question is – are there hints and tips and tricks that you guys can give me to help solve this issue? Here are some photos to show what everything looks like.

I don't have other examples to look at to tell if the spacing is off because of all the repairs done to the doors and the rear sill.

clearly the right door hangs a bit lower than the left. I loosened everything up and used the floor jack to raise it up as high as I could get it and then tightened everything back down but that's all I can get. I've included photos to let you look and see if I have installed it correctly, the sagging parts not withstanding.

 

[Vae Victus]

More

 

[Vae Victus]

And finally

 

[charliemeyer007]

The hinge(s) is/are bent on the passenger door. Take them off and straighten them. Then put on the door and adjust. Floor jack lifting the door isn't a good solution, you bend things

 

[swixtt]

I have a very similar issue. Can we see a pic of the sill with doors open?

 

[Chamba]

Have you tried loosening the hinges on the body-side, closing the doors and THEN tightening them? It looks to me from the picks like the doors are overlapping slightly.

 

[Living in the Past]

How much rust repair was done. Can tell the rear sill had work. How about the ambulance doors, any rust repair there? Not around it now but have a 76 with 4,500 miles that original and rust free. Could measure the the total distance between the sides. Alsomeasure the distance between top and bottom. If those areas area different than stock problem deeper than weatherstripping.

 

[zerotreedelta]

Aside from checking measurements, a little bit of light silicone spray can help things slide and seat a bit better. I still give my ambulance doors an occasional shot on the lowers as they do tend to roll a bit based on how they move.

 

[wimberosa]

I notice you don't have your roof on there....so its possible the rear uppers are a bit off as well. i.e. it may not be your doors. I outlined a method to try and square up my rear uppers here.

Build Post in thread 'Wimberosa's build: Loretta dances again'

Oct 10, 2025

I've been putting off finishing a new drip rail for the roof...because I suspected it was gonna be a PITA.
I've now confirmed my suspicions ... but progress has been made. My circumstances are:

1) Using a CCOT weld together rail I bought several years ago.
2) An old rail that was rusted completely through (and bent) in places.
3) Two upper quarters that aren't original fitment. Replacement (from the junk yard) and an original that's been re-skinned

First off I attempted to re-weld my old rail some to use as a pattern on the new rail welding. This
just threw the whole process off...

• wimberosa

• 

Bottom line I'd loosen all your uppers...your front doors...and your rear doors. As @charliemeyer007 says...make sure your hinges aren't bent also. Then I'd try to square up the upper portion of your 40 using something like what I outlined above. You may have been trying to get your square doors to fit to a non-square opening. You may also need to fudge it a bit (non-square) to get it to sit in there nice.

 

[Vae Victus]

Height from pictured is 1m 33mm 40 5/8".

Same left, right, middle. 1.033m

 

[wimberosa]

i would add one more pair of measurements for you to determine squareness in the back. Top corner to bottom opposite corner for both left and right should be symmetrical measurements if you're uppers are square at the rear.

 

[Vae Victus]

Width at the top 1.060m or 41 3/4".
At bottom is 1.056m or 41 5/8" so off by 1/8" / 4mm.

 

[pb4ugo]

You can take diagonal measurements of the opening to see if the opening is square.

 

[Vae Victus]

I notice you don't have your roof on there....so its possible the rear uppers are a bit off as well. i.e. it may not be your doors. I outlined a method to try and square up my rear uppers here.

Build Post in thread 'Wimberosa's build: Loretta dances again'

Oct 10, 2025

I've been putting off finishing a new drip rail for the roof...because I suspected it was gonna be a PITA.
I've now confirmed my suspicions ... but progress has been made. My circumstances are:

1) Using a CCOT weld together rail I bought several years ago.
2) An old rail that was rusted completely through (and bent) in places.
3) Two upper quarters that aren't original fitment. Replacement (from the junk yard) and an original that's been re-skinned

First off I attempted to re-weld my old rail some to use as a pattern on the new rail welding. This
just threw the whole process off...

• wimberosa

• 

Bottom line I'd loosen all your uppers...your front doors...and your rear doors. As @charliemeyer007 says...make sure your hinges aren't bent also. Then I'd try to square up the upper portion of your 40 using something like what I outlined above. You may have been trying to get your square doors to fit to a non-square opening. You may also need to fudge it a bit (non-square) to get it to sit in there nice.

Hmmm. Good point. Photos of rear uppers.

 

[Vae Victus]

I replaced both rear quarters. Also a little squishing of the rubber back here on both sides.

The doors themselves were clean. I didn't do any addition of new metal there.

 

[wimberosa]

The truck is looking great btw. Super frustrating but it'll pull together. There is lots of slop available if you pull in the right directions

 

[Vae Victus]

i would add one more pair of measurements for you to determine squareness in the back. Top corner to bottom opposite corner for both left and right should be symmetrical measurements if you're uppers are square at the rear.

Corner to corner is 1.465 on one and 1.468 on the other. So 3mm. Given the width difference top to bottom that makes sense.

 

[Vae Victus]

Saturday after Christmas is a great time to be asking questions since most everybody is off!

 

[Jdc1]

Throw some baby powder on the rubber at the top of the tub. Will let you slide it down into position. Might need to be trimmed as well.

 

[Vae Victus]

Are the hinges "handed" and top / bottom specific. I notice that the upper ones that *I* have in place are angled on the top of the bracket edge. Looks like at SOR.com they list them with different part numbers. I wonder if that could be changing the hang angle of the doors....