Bending Roadster Door Hinges

ericr

ericr

Well-known member
Instead of all the frustrating shimming that the restoration books advise for adjusting the roadster door fit, wouldn't dealers doing repairs originally have simply bent the hinges? Does anyone have experience on this or ever found a commercial hinge tool that accomodates Model "A"s? Or do people feel the cowl post won't take the strain?
 
Sometimes the replies here remind me of utopic situations. The correct way to do it is to add or remove shims but keep in mind we are dealing with 80 year old cars and trucks here and we have know idea what someone may have tried in the past. The fact that you are thinking about bending the hinges is probably not an original idea and I would think that it had been done a number of times in the past. When I was a kid back in the early 60's trying to line up doors an late model cars bending the hinges was the way it was shown to me. You would stick a 2x4 in between the cowl and the door and work it slowly until you were satisfied. Most of the time we were happy to just get the door to lock. I am sure it has been done on our Model a's as well. To what success I have no idea. Short answer...try to get it right with shimming and bend the hinges as a last resort. If you are bending hinges it's probably because someone had already done it.
 
ericr ...................
On my 1935 Cabriolet, my door always hung low. The strap had been broken and the door had been sprung too far.
I put a hammer handle in the hinge and gently pushed the door towards shut, several times, until it lined up. To my suprise, it also cured a droopy door handle problem. It was easy. I don't know how to bend it the other way.
MIKE :)
 
I tried some hinge bending on my phaeton and the problem was, that after an hour of tweaking, the problem had just moved to a different area of the door alignment. So, I had a bent up hinge with no clue as to how it was to begin with and the whole thing got kind of frustrating. I wished I had just shimmed it from the outset and ended up replacing the hinge and doing just that.
 
I'm in the process of fitting a pass side door and the gap is tight from the bottom up about 3/4 of the door. The front cowl bolt has 1 shim and directly under the post has 2 shims. What is the best way to shim in order to correct this problem?? Not being an expert it looks like the door just needs to move directly forward and then tip the top of the door back slightly. Does anyone know how to shim to correct the issue I have??

John
 
ericr said:
Instead of all the frustrating shimming that the restoration books advise for adjusting the roadster door fit, wouldn't dealers doing repairs originally have simply bent the hinges? Does anyone have experience on this or ever found a commercial hinge tool that accomodates Model "A"s? Or do people feel the cowl post won't take the strain?
Click to expand...

They wouldn't have needed to do either back then except possibly for major collision repair as the frames would not yet have developed a sag. Additionally, it's my understanding that craftsmanship was a bit more prevalent in those days which would make the odds better that something would be repaired correctly.

Right now I'm helping a buddy with '30 Phaeton where the wrong person had worked on an otherwise nice body. To get the doors to fit and function properly I had to remove three of the four doors, then remove their hinges and straighten them back to there original shape.

Unfortunately, what you describe is all too common today.


ericr said:
yeah but the '29 cowl doesn't accomodate that well, does it?
Click to expand...

A '29 cowl can be shimmed like any other.


Random shot of my project:

35-B_Ed-30.jpg
 
Marco Tahtaras said:
They wouldn't have needed to do either back then except possibly for major collision repair as the frames would not yet have developed a sag. Additionally, it's my understanding that craftsmanship was a bit more prevalent in those days which would make the odds better that something would be repaired correctly.

Right now I'm helping a buddy with '30 Phaeton where the wrong person had worked on an otherwise nice body. To get the doors to fit and function properly I had to remove three of the four doors, then remove their hinges and straighten them back to there original shape.

Unfortunately, what you describe is all too common today.




A '29 cowl can be shimmed like any other.


Random shot of my project:

35-B_Ed-30.jpg
Click to expand...
well, Marco, now that I think about it, bending the hinge may improve fit on the lock side of the door, but then it is going to screw up the fit on the hinge side of the door, since that end is on a different axis. You would then need slotted holes on the hinges to adjust the fit.
 
flatford39 said:
You don't shim the door...you shim under the cowl.
Click to expand...

Can a shim be placed under the cowl w/o removing the body? How would it be done? I also have this problem - with both doors - on my 31 deluxe roadster. The doors are out about 1" at the bottom. They still will latch. Is the shim a large rubber washer that is secured by the bolt? Is there any documentation regarding this?
 
I don't think that shimming the body will help in your case. If both doors are out about an inch at the bottom, it sounds to me like the quarter panels are spread too wide at the top. It is very common for roadster bodies to be distorted, they don't have the upper body strength of a closed car.
 
unfortunately there is no allowance for adjustment via the holes on the hinges for the screws, if there were a lot of these problems could be solved.
 
Purdy Swoft said:
I don't think that shimming the body will help in your case. If both doors are out about an inch at the bottom, it sounds to me like the quarter panels are spread too wide at the top. It is very common for roadster bodies to be distorted, they don't have the upper body strength of a closed car.
Click to expand...

So is there no fix for this?
 
Sure it can be fixed. If the quarters are spread at the top, They can be pulled back in place. If it is already painted, there is a chance of damage to the finish.

When I got mine, it had a long piece of all thread bolted through where the top irons connect to the quarters. There were cracks in a few places at the tops of the quarters that had to be welded. I had to line things up with the quarters so as to fit the doors. Being a retired bodyman helped, in my case. Here is a look at my roadster when I got
it.

Jam222.jpg
 
I don't know how the 30-31s are made, but when I started on my '29 that had been driven around the world, it seemed, we saw that a crack had developed on each side where the top of the quarter panel begins to curve, about where your shoulder would rest. Though not original of course we made a curved metal reinforcement piece and welded it underneath there.
 
ericr said:
I don't know how the 30-31s are made, but when I started on my '29 that had been driven around the world, it seemed, we saw that a crack had developed on each side where the top of the quarter panel begins to curve, about where your shoulder would rest. Though not original of course we made a curved metal reinforcement piece and welded it underneath there.
Click to expand...

Yes, the same for '30-31 models. The crack is typically about 1" behind the frond end of the tack rail. With that said, the quarters spread a bit before you ever see a crack start.
 
Marco Tahtaras said:
Yes, the same for '30-31 models. The crack is typically about 1" behind the frond end of the tack rail. With that said, the quarters spread a bit before you ever see a crack start.
Click to expand...

Yes, that makes sense and I would like to tell you that we pulled the quarters in a bit first, but I doubt it. That was years before the internet and helpful sites like this; also the literature was far more limited than what is available today and what little of it we had, was minimally devoted to body issues.
 
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