claudeC1'60

As you can see on the pictures, the window rear frame on the door is not flush with the body, on both right and left sides. Is there a fix for that issue other than a complete reshape of this area using fiber and resin ?
Thanks

Frankie the Fink

Pics of the entire rear edge of the door would help. IMO you can get a better fit than you have without body work. I would take a hard look at the top door jamb horizontal rubber weatherstrip. Mine was too thick and stiff and positioned too high making the door bow outward when it was closed as in the first two pictures.

New pieces from Zip were more supple and thinner with a better shape and allowed me to adjust the door jamb striker inward to get a nice fit. It took two striker adjustments spaced about two months apart to eventually get the weatherstrip to take a 'set' that allowed me to adjust the door more inward each time and resulted in the door fit you see in the last two pictures.

The rear vertical pillar of your doors seems to have more of a bow in it than mine ever did. Perhaps when they reefed in at the factory the worker was a little over-zealous.

DansYellow66

It's very common for some panel offset to occur in that area on coupes. Whether they left the assembly line like that or the roof line fiberglass moves a little over decades, I'm not sure. Fiberglass is not a completely stable material over time like steel. But yes, using some filler to flush the panels prior to re-painting is necessary to fix that. Because of the way Corvette bodies were built with numerous panels assembled in jigs with bonding agent, panel offsets, slight misalignments, etc are not uncommon. My 66 doors flare out away from the coupe top panel down to the window beltline so it pretty much occurred through the entire production run.

Frankie the Fink

Let's not forget that the door fit on coupes is so problematic is because of a manufacturing mistake with the roof dimensions.

Well known issue...

There is a lot that can be done for a better fit short of breaking out the filler and sand paper...

65 Pro Vette

There is more going on with these doors then factory fit issues. The factory problems where at the top front of the door, not where these are bad. Where the doors fitted before paint? Was the body off the frame? If the body is not shimmed correctly door fit can be a problem. Is the super structure (bird cage) rotted? Are they the original doors? Most Cp door miss alignment is unfortunately poor repair and no trick to fix.

morly1963

Agree.

rtruman

claudeC1'60

I believe Frankie's issue is different from mine. The door rear vertical pillar bows outwards only in the middle / bottom part of it, the rest of door alignment with the body being correct. Also it's odd to have the same problem on both sides. Did not get any information from previous owner. I'll check what's underneath the weatherstripping when I have the car, hopefully in about 2 months

MOXIE62

Don't think they ever left the factory looking like that. Looks like some of bubba's work. Maybe it's the pictures but looks like there is very little gap at several places.

desertpilgrim

There's a reason why the JG since the early 80's called out that coupe doors DON'T FIT. They didn't. When Frankie refers to the fit of his as "ever did", I can assure him that his doors/body have been "worked"
to fit the way they do. You might remove the weatherstrip, after photos, and see what changes occur, because there are w/strips & w/strips. Try to avoid removing the weatherstrips, closing the doors, enclosing with fiberglass, cutting new gaps with your sabre saw and molding to match - the result is something that didn't exist.

rtruman

Why cant you remove the interior on sides and see if its been worked on both sides
Looks to be body work on that area on both sides.

claudeC1'60

Agreed, looks like there is a lack of body thickness in particular on the first pic. The problem may reside in the body not on the doors.

Frankie the Fink

There are some smart guys responding in this thread so I'll just say that its hard to deduce what might be going on through two partial pictures of the doors in question.
There is perfect and there is "good enough". The fit could be made better with some adjustments; MUCH better with body/panel massaging... Its the owners call..