TheSamba.com :: View topic - Body expert in Denver Area? Need cab door adjusting.

Sun Mar 15, 2015 6:58 pm

After a long winter of taking care of other tasks, I'm back on the subject of getting my doors to close correctly. Venture started here: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=610749

I'd rather not drive across state to KCW to have some cab doors adjusted so can anyone toss out recommendations for a VW body person/shop in the Denver area please? I'd much rather pay an expert for a couple of hours labor than jack with it myself and dick something up in the process.

Thank you!

Mon Mar 16, 2015 7:13 am

Really?... Have you tried to loosen the hinge screws on the body and fiddle with it? It can't be that difficult,.... can it?

Gordo.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 7:39 am

To be honest Gordo, it felt a bit silly making the request after I literally just had everything south of the floorboards out. But I've tried all of the "easy" stuff so it's on now to the more complex, which normally wouldn't be such a big deal and I would just take the time to screw with it and learn. However, given that everything is already painted and "complete", it would be more prudent to give an expert a shot at it before I were to make things worse. They could likely do in a couple of hours what I would take days to jack with and possibly still not be where I want. This and I'm usually solo given my work schedule compared to others, which increases the difficulty.

Given the lack of response however, it may be up to me anyway. Fortunately, easy e sent me a few ideas to move on with so that's part of my do-list today.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 2:06 pm

Fredrok wrote: To be honest Gordo, it felt a bit silly making the request after I literally just had everything south of the floorboards out. But I've tried all of the "easy" stuff so it's on now to the more complex, which normally wouldn't be such a big deal and I would just take the time to screw with it and learn. However, given that everything is already painted and "complete", it would be more prudent to give an expert a shot at it before I were to make things worse. They could likely do in a couple of hours what I would take days to jack with and possibly still not be where I want. This and I'm usually solo given my work schedule compared to others, which increases the difficulty.

Given the lack of response however, it may be up to me anyway. Fortunately, easy e sent me a few ideas to move on with so that's part of my do-list today.

Don't feel silly asking. I am having the same problem and my bus is also painted. I have now scratched the jam pretty good where it will need to be touched up once the door is aligned properly. My friends and I tried for hours to get it perfect, to no avail. We tried shims, hinge adjustment, lifting the crap out of the door, everything aside from smacking the hinge with a sledge hammer. I would like to find a place in the North Bay Area (Santa Rosa) that could do this for me also, then touch up what I screwed up. Please post how you did it if you fix it. I can't bring myself to smacking the hinge.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 3:15 pm

Try getting ahold of the metalsurgeon in Denver. He the best around for body work on classics.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 3:50 pm

FWIW...
My cab door window frames were not fitting at the upper rear corners.

Hinges were a little sloppy... so I started there.
Installed two used body side hinges with holes at 0.316" dia. Then didn't need oversized pin on mirror arms. WW has them & reamer. Can only go so big though... without bushing it.... 0.321" might be max.

I replaced one door side hinge too.... was too worn. Lucky to have found good used.

Hinge replacement got rid of some variables... but still didn't fit.

Needed to have top hinge out all the way, away from body (screw adjustment) + bottom hinges in all the way.

Close... but had to take apart & put one body side hinge in the vise & make hinge pin area be ~fat 1/16" more forward. Re painting body side hinges is pretty small fix.

Welting under frame (on top of door) was too narrow. Round bead wanted to sit under the frame & held it up. I loosened frame bolts & worked from rear to front using a 90 degree sharp pick to stab into the round welting & pull it out from under the frame. Had to have one hand pull frame down a little (as I was working to the front with the pick)... so the welting wouldn't sneak back under the frame. A little baby powder helped frame be willing to slip past welting.

Don't mess with trying to adjust the door side hinges. They're good or they're not. Trying to tweak them will probably just get you to tear the door metal & it's probably already fatigued. Drilling out those rivets & fixing bad door metal gets more involved.

If you find yourself looking for used hinges (repro not available)... ask seller for max hole dia. You don't want to buy something that won't get you where you need to go.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 4:23 pm

Could you please post a pic? (or 3 showing various positions). That would help.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 4:27 pm

Manfred58sc wrote: Could you please post a pic? (or 3 showing various positions). That would help. Did you see this in the first post?
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=610749

Mon Mar 16, 2015 6:52 pm

Got it!! Thanks.

Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:39 pm

I opted to take Gordo's unintended shaming ambition and go at it myself today. It was close to 5 hours but a productive one.

Thanks Evan for the tips. I ended up removing the upper frame as I thought maybe the welting was pinched and turned out not so much, but it gave me a chance to look everything over. I ended up sucking down the upper frame into the door/ seal much tighter, tightening the middle bolt set and then pulling the forward leg in while tightening that bolt set. This brought the frame down and out, fixing 80% of my binding issues.

In no order, I ended up with the following adjustments to get the doors close to perfect.
- Upper hinges out, lowers in about 50% (More on my drivers side). Mine are in good condition wear-wise
- Shimmed outer, lower hinge bolts
- a shit ton of jacking around with the striker plate position to find a happy medium between closing easy enough and pulling in the door edge enough. In the end, I still had to leave the passenger side rubber wedge off to be happy with the results. I'll modify that down the road and install.

It would still have been worth a few bucks to have a great body guy save me a day of pissing with it, but it wouldn't take me as long next time.

Curtis, thanks for the heads up on the metalsurgeon. He seems to be a rarity around here and a resource I'll likely use in the future.

Tarzan, hope the thread give you some ideas!

Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:43 pm

Great to hear of your success... way to keep at it.
e

Tue Mar 17, 2015 7:43 am

Thanks e and I appreciate your help on the pm. it got me thinking more about the options.

They still have to be shut more firmly than I'd like to see but that may be the nature of the beast and at least I don't need a palm at the bottom anymore. If I wanted to trim my door panels a bit where they pinch between door and body at the bottom, that would help, but I'm not ready to get into that just yet.

Tue Mar 17, 2015 7:03 pm

If those are new rubber seals around the window frame; put baby powder on them. Should see noticeable improvement.

Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:00 pm

Thanks Scott, I definitely did that but not because it made them hard to close but more because they were hard to open!