For the love of god, some one please give me some tips on how to align/install my doors. I purchased another set of doors (1988) to throw on my 1987, and I haven't been able to align it correctly for the last who knows how long.

What is the easiest way to do this? This easy job has became such a pain!!!

 

it just wont close correctly/tightly.

 

Hanging body panels is more of a black art than a science.
It looks like it should be very straightforward- hell, it's just a couple of hinges, right?- but it's not.

My best advice, which you probably don't want to hear, is find a good body shop and have them do it.
A tweak here, a little nudge there and suddenly it'll just fall into place.
The trick is knowing where to tweak and how hard to nudge.

 

It helps to have a friend around, if not get a block of wood on top of a jack to hold the door at an appropriate height while you tighten the fasteners. You need the bolts tight enough so that the door holds place when you move it, and loose enough that you can hit it into the right adjustment, once it looks good you crank down the bolts, but of course not to the point that they strip (use a 1/4" ratchet so you don't over do it). You can just have one bolt per hinge tightened to that threshold point your trying to attain.

Also you want to start lining up the body gaps with the things closest to the fixed/welded parts (rear quarter panels). So you adjust the doors to fit the quarters, than you might have to adjust the fenders to fit the doors and then the hood.

Sometimes people recommend removing the striker from the door jam. This is nice because you can now close the door without it latching, and your not fooled by the striker alignment as opposed to the hinge alignment. Ever notice when closing a door that it is sometimes hanging too low until right when it hits the striker? Then the door will be jolted up into place, but it won't close nicely because of this, and it will slowly wear out the latch and striker.

To properly align the doors you probably should remove the strikers. Then make slight adjustments until the door closes properly with even gaps all around, and then you make the striker align to the latch.

I also remember hearing something about tightening the bottom hinge more than the top, then you can kind of pivot the door up before you lock down the bolts.

There is something else to account for, if you have the door open and you lift up and down on it, there should be little to no play in the door, if it will lift up and fall down, than you'll probably have to either replace the door bushing? or just align the door more upwards to compensate, but if the whole car shakes than it's just an alignment problem. I remember seeing my teacher adjust a door with the bolts still tight, he just placed a short 2X4 between the bottom of the door and the bottom door jamb (above the rocker panel), he closed the door against he and lifted up on the piece of wood hanging out. You can also just lift the door with a lot of force if your a strong person, but IMO you should have the bolts just a little loose. I think the idea is sometimes you can adjust the alignment with the bolts, and also you can bend the metal some.

Hopefully that'll help a little, I went to community college for auto body repair for a year, worked in a body shop for like 3 months before I got a job at the Honda dealership as a technician (where I do very little body work), so I'm no auto body master, but I've seen a couple things.

-Zach