confab

The one thing I could not find on this forum was a good door and window alignment tutorial. It is not addressed in the FSM. I found a pretty good write up here, but some pics would help. That is the purpose of this thread, because it's confusing at first and it took me a second to figure it out, but there is a procedure and if you follow it you will have good results.

I figured this would be a good time to do it because I had both doors completely off and torn down for paint. So, the alignment is totally screwed.

First: Proper window alignment begins with a well aligned door. So, the door hinges cannot have slop in them. If they do, you need to replace the pins and bushings. Kits are available at Autozone. Use a vice to press the bushings in, then drive the pin through. They must be tight and the bushings must be primo.

Second: It helps a lot if you have a means of supporting the door from above. I used a lift arm and some ratchet straps, but a rafter.. An engine hoist boom.. Or anything you have is better than trying to balance it on a jack or whatever.




1) Put the hinges on, maneuver the door into place, attach it to the hinges in the open position. Then carefully click it onto the pin in the doorjamb.

DO NOT LET THE DOOR MOVE BACKWARDS AS YOU ARE ADJUSTING OR YOU WILL DO PAINT DAMAGE. I put another ratchet strap on the upper hinge and kept the door pulled forwards to avoid this.

2) Pull the door forward to maintain the door gap at the quarter panel at all times. While hanging from the pin in the closed position, twist the door to match the body quarter panel, push the front of the door into position in the jamb and snug the hinges.

3) Adjust the door horizontally, always maintaining an adequate gap at the quarter OR YOU WILL DO PAINT DAMAGE.

What you will find is no matter how good your hinges, it will drop when opened. Use your ratchet straps and support from above to raise the door above its normal position and snug the hinges to compensate for this drop. If the front of the door is too low, carefully support it and adjust it into place as well. (I used a bottle jack you can see in the picture for this and it is a good method.)



4) Fine tune the door fit before proceeding. It should open and close with minimal effort if the weatherstrip is in place, With zero effort if it is not. Route your wiring through the door.



Once you have that part done and it is all snugged down and right, then comes the window alignment. You will need the A & B Pillar and the Top weatherstrip in place for this part, so install it now. Don't glue it yet.

5) Pull a bunch of fuses so you're not running the fuel pump and everything else during the adjustment procedure. Install the wiring, window regulator and the window itself to the three points on the regulator.

6) With the window down, install the compound bracket to the two points in the door. A pic of the compound bracket is below.





WINDOW ADJUSTMENT:

This is the tricky part and it takes patience. At no point should you ever just slam the door because paint or window damage may result. Carefully test close it first, paying close attention to be sure the window does not strike the car, particularly the B Pillar-Halo area with the upper corner.

Before you begin adjusting: What you are looking for is an even gap around the top of the window. It should be about 1/4" ish when the door is closed on the safety latch. (The first click before it locks completely) it should fall below the weatherstrip evenly and then gently push up to make a complete seal when the door is fully closed.

On the Halo, you want a nice, relatively even gap that doesn't get too close to the Pillar (especially at the top corner of the window) and covers about 2/3rds or so of the plump piece of weatherstrip that seals the back of the window.

The compound bracket (I dunno the real name for it?) is exactly that, compound and it does two things. It limits the overall vertical travel of the window going UP by contacting the bracket on the window and stopping it. It also moves laterally to adjust the degree of window tilt. The more severely you angle the bracket with the one bolt adjustment on the side, the more tilt the window will have when it is rolled up.

Something you will notice when you roll the window up, the rear of the window will stop first when it contacts the compound bracket, but the front will continue to rise approximately 3/8" or so.. This is important to notice because a gap that looks really haywire in the front with the window slightly down will look much different when the bracket stops the rear of the window and the front moves into position. There is a stop for the front of the window as well, and there is a little adjustment there, but the main factor is the position of the compound bracket in the rear.

Beginning your adjustment:

The main adjusting is done with the three fasteners where the window meets the regulator. Carefully adjust the front-rear and tilt of the window now, roll up and down to check and use the compound bracket to limit height. Remember the gaps we're looking for.

When it looks close, close the door and use a business card to to check for full contact with the weatherstrip. There should be AT LEAST a light drag everywhere.. If not, it absolutely will leak water and air there. If it is gapped along the B Pillar, use the compound bracket to tilt the window in towards the car and close it up. Keep adjusting, dragging the business card and fine tune your adjustment.

When you think it's right, carefully play a water hose over the window. Don't blast it, but carefully play it along all the seams and make sure you have it right. A test drive won't help you, because you can't hear wind noise with the door panels off anyway. So, it's the hose.

CHEATING!

I bought new weatherstrip for my car and I paid quite a bit for it and WAS pretty happy with it till I started doing the window adjustment. It always leaked but I paid no attention to it because I knew the adjustment was off anyway.. But the truth is, upon closer inspection, there are deformed areas at the top of the Halo area and it is NEVER going to be right there.. I've had it too long to send it back now. This is irritating, but it gives us a chance to talk about tweaks.

Tweaks:

If you have a problem like mine, I have found that shimming parts of the weatherstrip with tiny emissions hose isn't noticeable in any way, but effectively closes a small gap that wouldn't otherwise be fixable without a new piece of stripping.

Also, if you have a problem at the Halo area, you can remove the aluminum strips that hold the weatherstripping and oval the holes slightly. Put a light amount of silicone on the back and replace it back on the car.. Pull it out.. Tighten it down, and viola! You can use that piece of crap weatherstrip after all! Be patient and you'll get it all worked out.

Other Tweaks:

You probably won't find it necessary (I didn't) but you can get a teenie, itty-bitty, little bit of adjustment like, twist, angle, etc, out of the regulator mounting points. If you need it, loosen these fasteners and move the window and you can see what and how much pretty easily.

Glue:

I didn't use any aside from a bit of black silicone to tack down some ends in the door jamb area. (haven't installed the top strips yet) It is fine this way, maybe even better because you can move it and it can squish and move around to seat itself. If you ever need to remove it you won't destroy it. This is NOT a problem, even with the stripping on the A & B Pillars. It won't blow off or cause you any trouble whatsoever.

Good luck and I hope this helps someone.. Woot.

Mr. Peabody

That was a great write up. Particularly the first section on aligning the door.

When I was replacing the window regulator on the drivers side I was able to find this write up by a fellow member Vette93USA . Perhaps it will add a few more pointers to the window alignment task. It helped me quite a bit.
http://thesite4all.tripod.com/C4_Window_Alignment.pdf

confab

Thanks.. Mine is an 85, and that one looks a bit different from what I'm dealing with.

Hopefully having it all together will help someone, regardless.

yd328

Thanks for posting. My passenger window just started having an issue, starting to rub on the b post.

Gary

confab

Give your pins and bushings a look. They go first..

Tom400CFI

Any advice as to how to adjust the in/out of the window? When mine are both all the way down. the glass is snug in the door. Close the door...."chunk" and it's closed. When they're both all the way up, they're loose in the padded upper guides. Still the door closes and sounds nice b/c the glass is supported by the weather stripping as it closes.

It's when the windows are just below fully up, just above all the way down, or anything in between....you close the door and it sounds like the glass might break.

It seems like if I move the upper pads "out" more, pressing against the glass, then it will bind at the top and bottom where it is already snug. Thoughts?

confab

Hey Tom! I replaced the bumpers on mine and adjusted them so they come into contact with the window as it approaches full closed.

Solved the "rattles and sounds like junk" problem when the windows aren't almost all the way up or down.

Tom400CFI

10-4. Thanks for the tip. I'll try new bumpers.