Door Fit, Driver's Side Adjustment

[RRoller123]

It is long past time that I did something about the fit of the driver's side door. It closes and latches fine, but the front fit is too far inboard and forward, and the rear fit is too far outboard and forward. Before I go monkeying around with the hinges and almost certainly screw it all up, do any of you Fiat folks know the proper methodology for adjusting the fit of these doors? (I understand that I should put a 2x4 across the underside of the door and support it with the floor jack). It looks to me that I have to add washer shims to get the front side to move outboard a little more.(?) The rear adjustment looks only to be able to be influenced by the positioning of the rubber bumper at the bottom of the door.(?) The car may have been hit on this side in the past, but I am not going to straighten it, I just want to get the door to fit a little better. The measurement between center to center of the front/rear wheels is within 1/4" left to right side-side, so I am not overly concerned about the frame. Not a show car by any means, just a cruise night hobby car, as it should be. 1980 FI Spider 2000. Thanks!

[80spiddy]

No washers needed. Four bolts on door (two under door panel, which must come off). These adjust door fore and aft as well as tilt the up down. Body hinge four bolts are for the in an out to match your fender and quarter panel alignment. The door catch should not be relied on for alignment.

[RRoller123]

Thanks, Spiddy! I will try this, maybe get to it today.

[NSFIAT]

This post caught my interest - my driver side door hangs a bit low along the entire bottom length, causing it to rub up a bit on the chrome trim. I do have the door stops installed, so I assume that adjusting these a bit would make a difference?

[80spiddy]

You may have cracked sheet metal (as I and others have) in the body hinge mount area or the door hinge mount area. My driver door sagged so bad the door wouldn't close to catch the striker. Both body and door hinge attachment areas were cracked in many places. Welded and all is well. Passenger side, no damage and good as new.

[RRoller123]

I have looked pretty closely and don't see any cracks, but I haven't tackled this job yet, just too much other stuff going on. Wife had semi-emergency surgery, Grandpa diagnosed with Alzheimers and moved to new facility. It has been somewhat busy around here of late.

[RRoller123]

Finished this yesterday, it was actually a pretty easy one person job. Just use a floor jack to support the door, with a 2x4 piece to adjust to the door lip underneath. The hinge plates at front can be adjusted, and there is about 1/8" to maybe 3/16" or more adjustment in the door striker plate. The rubber door bumper has a tiny amount of adjustment play; and it needs more. It can be set to lift the sag slightly when the door is closed. It mounts to a floating nut plate behind. Got it all pretty close, not perfect, but good enough for this car. I didn't go through the effort to pull the driver's side door panel, getting that remote mirror adjustment back properly in place is a royal pita.

Moved the door striker inboard about 3/16" or so, and replaced the bottom bolt with a longer one. The thread engagement is remarkably little on this, not sure if it came from the factory that way, but the old bolt looked original.



No adjustment available for the bottom receptacle, but the rubber bumper has a little play in it.



I avoided going inside the door card to get to the third screw, was able to do the adjustments at the frame hinges without disturbing the door.



Pull the 10mm bolts for the retention strap to get at the heads of the 13mm hinge mounting bolts.



It came out pretty well, without having to go inside the door. Even gaps both sides of the car now.

[AriK]

Good job! Car looks great!

[NSFIAT]

Awesome post - thanks for the step by step. I'll be tackling this next!

[RRoller123]

Thanks!

Follow up:

Yesterday I replaced the top one of the two Phillips Flat Head screw fasteners on the Jam Striker Plate with an Allen Head Socket style screw, because the original appeared to be partially stripped when I took it out. The Allen Socket Head hex is so much better than the old Phillips. There was a SS one available at the local Hardware store, but it has a significantly larger diameter head, so it will sit proud of the surface. I tried it anyway and tested the fit, it only protrudes a little from the top surface of the striker, does not hit the door latch mechanism, and works fine.

[DieselSpider]

Might want to consider lubricating those door hinges more regularly. Amazing what a few drops of oil or a spritz of white lithium can do to extend the life of things. At one place I worked we began to think it was folks refusing to lube things to get back at the Rockefeller's things were left so dry all the time.

[RRoller123]

Spray Silicone does it for me, run all around the door perimeter, keeps the rubber sharp too.