Driver's Door Alignment Issues and Repair

_ExpeditionMan

Well-known member
Dec 11, 2017
295
34
Texas
My D1 driver's door has been misaligned for a while and someone clearly tried to fix it previously. Unfortunately they used an exorbitant amount of shims of non-oem variety (see u shaped shim below). I took a shot at re-adjusting the door and it is now aligned properly but still slightly too low for the door striker (even adjusted all the way down). In reality my door needs to move rearward and slightly upward. I'm considering acquiring more of the OEM shims although 4 are already on the upper hinge. I am hoping the hinge connection at the body is adjustable as well.

How many shims are on your driver's door hinge? How about the striker? What is considered excessive here?

From reading the RAVE/experimentation there seem to be the following points of adjustment:

1) upper door to hinge bolts
2) lower door to hinge bolts
3) door striker
4) window frame bolts inside door cavity

Are there any other points of adjustment? For example:

-upper hinge to A pillar bolts
-lower hinge to A pillar bolts
-door latch assembly
 

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Last edited:

simondewing

Well-known member
Feb 10, 2020
59
11
Texas
While you are messing with it try replacing the hinge pins (and make sure you lubricate them afterwards!).
Available from all the usual suspects.
Doors tend to drop over time as hinge pins wear then people try to fix it by adjusting the number of shims
With worn hinge pins you will never succeed in aligning the doors and knocking out / replacing pins is way easier than repeatedly adjusting the door with different shims
 

_ExpeditionMan

Well-known member
Dec 11, 2017
295
34
Texas
While you are messing with it try replacing the hinge pins (and make sure you lubricate them afterwards!).
Available from all the usual suspects.
Doors tend to drop over time as hinge pins wear then people try to fix it by adjusting the number of shims
With worn hinge pins you will never succeed in aligning the doors and knocking out / replacing pins is way easier than repeatedly adjusting the door with different shims
Thanks I'll do some research on replacing the hinge pins.

I tried playing around with my parts truck and using lessons learned was able to adjust the door (with more OEM shims) to improve the close. Still a little too low for the door catch/striker. The distance between the drivers front fender and the drivers door is of primary concern. If I remove shims on the door hinge the seam gets too tight and I clash. At this point I'm considering removing the fender, replacing the hinge pins, and then adjusting the front hinge to body mounts.