0Northern Corvette

Trying to fit a door on a 63 coupe and the passenger door won’t go in far enough. Not sure this makes sense, but it’s sticking out a half inch by the hinge. It can’t go in any more because inner metal is hitting hinge. Someone suggested door is riveted together wrong, but the metal structure inside door rivets flush to inner fiberglass. If you unrivet and try to move the metal back then it you would have half inch gap between metal and door, so it wouldn’t be possible to rivet. Tough to see in pics, but any ideas?

And the drivers side is hitting by back vents. I know they tweaked these at factory, does this one look like it could be tweaked to fit? If that corner came back a bit then door would fit fine. Any help?

Frankie the Fink

The factory 'tweak' was a beefy guy 'reefing' in the coupe doors by bending the tops inward with a knee at the lower window edge to fit the roof which had an engineering discrepancy. I don't think that'll fix your problem. I have heard of people grinding the hinge down to make a better fit but you shouldn't have to do that...

Scroll halfway down this page to "More Odds and Ends" section:

http://1963splitwindow.blogspot.com/...or%20Alignment

Your pics aren't really showing me the problem IMO...

MikeM

Small piece of the pie it is.

If that's all they did, they would have created many other surfaces that didn't like each other. And they did anyway. It's just well disguised.

0Northern Corvette

Can’t see the problem on driver or passenger? Passenger is out from body, hard to show in pics.

Frankie the Fink

I see it now.

67's

Are those the doors that were on the car before? If so how did they fit? How were they stored off the car, have they warped?

0Northern Corvette

No they are doors that I purchased. What about the passenger though? Warping wouldn’t cause issue of not going in. Gaps are all even, just doesn’t go in enough?

DansYellow66

Have you looked closely for any sign of impact damage around the cowl on the pass side?

In your first photo showing the ends of the doors, it looks like the openings for the hinge arms on the pass side door have been opened up a lot wider than for the driver door. I suspect something may be amiss inside the pass door. Maybe Bubba has been inside there.

65 Pro Vette

0Northern Corvette

What on the passenger door could make it not go in? The metal only goes in one spot, there’s no way to rivet that in wrong? Twisting the door can’t make the door not go in there

426 Hemi

I had two cars that the front of the door wouldn't go in far enough. I got them to go in by adding shims only to the rear two bolts of each hinge. Hard to explain but it pulls the front of the door in.

65 Pro Vette

. The passenger door was worse than the driver side. It’s hard to tell what they did when they had these doors apart but it appears as though the fiberglass on the front of the door is in the wrong position when you looked in the slots you saw way too much of the metal structure. So either the metal structure was bent or the fiberglass structure of the door was modified at one time. I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with the door other than it fit like crap. And two other doors fit perfect on this car. When you take these doors completely apart you must bolt them on a perfect car to rebuild them or you’re just wasting your time, these doors may have been rebuilt on a twisted car and the only fit that car. I have replaced skins on 63 coupe’s that were damaged without an issue. Another issue with the 63 to 67 doors is the rivets in the front of the doors are weak and if someone open a door to far at one time it bends that metal structure that holds the door together and pops the rivets, you can’t tell by looking at it until you bolt it on the car. But a slight bend there is catastrophic.

MikeM

Good info!

Frankie the Fink

Soooo -- I'm not hearing the bottom line.
Is the ill-fitting door a throwaway or can it be saved ?
These are HARD to find as you know...

Ausbrian

The metal reinforcement that can be seen in the hole that the hinge goes through and attaches to the door looks like it is inboard too much on passenger door.On my doors the reinforcement is about flush with the hole. You might need to remove rivets and adjust metal reinforcement until the door alignment is o.k Only other thing is the hinge pillar location, but if car is un damaged this is unlikely. Good luck

0Northern Corvette

That’s the thing. If you look at this pic here, you can see the metal is flush with the inner skin, and the fiberglass is not modified or touched. There’s no way to adjust the metal outward, as it sits flush on inside and has nowhere to go?