Door fit problems - or worse. Options

[andrewb]

Hi - here are a few pics of my car which needs 'quite a lot' of work.



The immediate problem I'm trying to solve is this - the drivers side door gap - at the forward edge.



There is no adjustment that I can see (i.e. no shims on the hinge mount) which can only mean that the front wing (sorry, fender) is 'out'. As far as I can tell it is the original.

My questions are

1. Would it have left the factory like that ? I've read that tolerances were a bit slack by todays standards. The door gap on the drivers side is about 4mm more than on the passengers side. It hangs low by about 5mm when open but lines up perfectly when closed. There is no discernable play in the hinges. The door does shut with a liitle resistance but does not open and close as freely as the passenger side. Gaps on that side are a steady and even 2 to 3 mm front and back. Roll bar to windscreen frame dimensions are equal side to side within 1mm and do not change when the doors are open. The doors are the same size.

2. If it didn't leave the factory like that - what has caused it ? The car has had a light knock on the left front corner which I will show in my next post but the damage doesn't appear to extend any further back than where the inner wheel arch meets the bulkhead between the fuel tank and spare wheel well. The inner longs are completely shot both sides, the inner INNER longs are shot up to about 2" above the floor, the floors are fairly bad and the hell hole is good. I'll show all this with future pics.

3. Can I put it right and if so how ? Again - more pictures following will help you to decide.

Thanks in advance. The knowledge on this forum is priceless.

[andrewb]

Wow ! replies to my first post from McMark AND George. Thanks for the input.
Realred - you're right, there are probably less than 200 cars in the UK - it makes me weep to see what you throw away or sell for peanuts in Ca.
I've seen a few threads about crash damage having other than expected effects (Rick 918 sorted out a car which needed pulling downwards at the front and that squared it up in other areas) so I'm now thinking that is the first thing to tackle and see what happens. Has the frontal impact also pushed the front end sideways and therefore pulled the wing(fender) away from the door ? I'm off to do some more measuring and then to bolt a shackle to the garage floor.
As a back up plan I do have this



but I'd like to solve the problem without using it.

One of the (many) next jobs is this

[Tom_T]

One of the (many) next jobs is this

I wouldn't put it on a Collette Bench or similar, until you get that rusty long fixed & any other structurally critical sheet metal areas which are likewise rusted out - or temporatily bracing it (in case the areas you need to rust repair are out too).

A local shop here in SoCal put a 914-6 on a bench to pull it straight before fixing the critical rust rot in the longs & floor pan (didn't think to do temp braces apparently either), & literally pulled the car apart when the tried to straighten the front end body damage! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Also, with that drivers side long in that shape, if your rear gap is similarly out-of-whack, then it could also be due to the sagging - in addition to or instead of the accident whack putting it out of line.