bus chassis twist/door alignment

[57palm]

OK here is the deal. I am fitting all the doors and body metal on my 57 standard in preparation for some sheet metal work. Front doors are good,rear hatch good, deck lid good, the cargo doors were out. The top of the doors was not parallel with the top of chassis. This puzzled me as the van has been in no apparent accidents.

With the bus on 4 jackstands I found out I was able to rock the bus and twist the chassis. This would easily bring the doors in and out of alingment.Another way to put it is if you had the bus on three jack stand and jacked up the fourth corner high it would twist the chassis and bring the doors in or out ofalignment by up to 1/4 inch.

I have seen busses with good door alignment and bad. Now I think the difference is only how flat the ground is you are parked on. I have to say I am a little surprised at how easy this thing moves. My bus was out simply by having it on slightly uneven jack stands.

Any comments???

[BarryL]

I've often thought about this especially when my bus creaks and moans while going off road or over a curb. I look at busses and find cracks everywhere from that constant tweaking. Most common places I've found are: top of "b" and "c" pillars at the surface weld, the rear hatch upper at the hinge stops on a wide hatch, and where the bulkhead round stock meets the "b" pillar the weld is always cracked all the way 'round. Sheesh.

[57palm]

Yeah,I have crawled all over this bus and found a few cracks here and there. Nothing major though. I guess it is normal...hence the belly pans on panels and deluxes.


Reuben

[Aaron]

[Lind]

[Stocknazi]

i was curioous if swivel seat buses suffer from more stress cracks and tweaks than other buses? what about flipseat westys?
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[57palm]

Yeah Lind, my bus does not sit flat on 4 jack stands on level ground. That is how I found the alignment problem.........dropped it on 4 stands...........doors were out............found one stand was not touching....adjusted stands and brought doors back in. To align doors one front stand clearly bears more weight...is this normal........this does pose some problems with adjusting the cargo doors.........I guess you go for as good as possible with the understanding they are never perfect.


Reuben