Door adjustment

How do you adjust the gap between the doors?

I changed the 2nd gen doors that were on the side to the rear and the gaps are off, ALOT. They sit pretty close to the body and have a large gap in between them, so did the original doors. I moved them to the side, but the bottom on both doors are pretty rotted out. So I'm looking for some panel doors for it.

Any help would be great.

No, just the doors. But the other doors fit the same way.

Thats what I thought.

Thanks I will try that.

I took my hinges and cut them vertically. Then added a 1/4" gap by tack welding them, hanging the doors to check the gap all around. Then took doors off van and welded up gap on hinges from the cuts made and ground all welds, painted hinges. My doors now have a nice 3/8" gap all around and the door gaskets touch the jamb like new. I did the board trick only to find the doors return back eventually. I think the sheetmetal in the door shell is stressed over time. I chose to widen the hinges and leave the door alone. Seems to be fine 10 years later. Hope this helps.

My gap is actually 3/16", not 3/8". Sorry about that.

Yes! My problem was the rear and side doors had a tapered gap that grew larger towards the bottom. My remedy has made the doors equally gapped all the way down the center and the gap along the body. It is time consuming, but it depends on how much work you want to do and how bad you want your old van to look like a new one.

I can tell you one thing........whoever worked on THIS van was a hack!

mountainkowboy I think that same guy hit all our vans threw the years

I remember when I got my van. The guy was bitching that it took him "hours" to get the back doors lined up. The way he was describing it made me afraid to even touch them. Of course I have first gen door on my 67.

Has anyone tried bending the hinges to adjust the gaps? That was the recommendation of a bodyman. You'd obviously have to use a torch to heat the metal but that would ensure it would bend where you want it to. Then, which part to bend? The one that's already curved, I would think.

I thought for sure there'd be a way to shim them but there ain't.

This is very common. I see it on most of the early Chevy vans. Does anyone have one with cargo door gaps that ARE even?

Good luck with that. I'm not much help past using shimms. Dense plastic is good as it doesn't hold water. My rears have something over a half inch gap. Seems to be so normal with our van I wonder if it's just that wa from the factory--nobody sold these for van shows. Still closes and locks okay so I'm not motivated to fix. Nonetheless, please report what did work for you. Thanks much!

Measure your door jambs for squareness first. Measure your doors for squareness too.

I had to use a ram on a door jamb to close a gap.

Bending the hinge might help , but you would have to stretch or shrink the curved part (re-radius it). If I was going to be that fussy I'd probably rework the edges of the doors themselves if they latched and sealed okay.

Inspect, inspect & Inspect = the doors where hinges bolt in. possibly-?? wind or an accident has bent the hinge mount areas inside the door ?? Being in the body work for some time in my past life ive never had to bend a hinge. Ever!Always was another problem that wasnt forseen.

On my rear doors I had to ad a strip of 1/8" to gap. 3/16th at top and wider (3/8") on bottom to get a good 1/8" all around both doors. Looks better then factory now.

The end results are a good straight gap.

[i]Good Fix - nice results!! Thats usually the ways.

I think I figured out the cause of this gap! I was looking at my rear doors. The gap is so big that the latch doesn't even reach the "striker" on the other door!

I bet most people are like me and removed the straps that keep the doors from opening all the way up. They're not needed, right, because the hinges have a built-in stop that keeps the door from hitting the van.



So, you know the old trick of adjusting a door by closing it against a block of wood in the hinge area? Hinges are tough steel but this trick works because you've got the leverage of the door's width to help you bend things. Well what do you think is happening every time we open a cargo door all the way and it hits that stop?! Same thing. A lot of leverage being applied to the hinges!

Go out and push a door against the stop. Just by pushing with one hand you can see the force being applied to those two hinges and the door frame they are bolted to. So picture 45 years of this, along with the occasional door-catches-the-wind like TwinPilot said. And never is any force applied in the opposite direction.

So here's what I'm going to try: I'm guessing that the 1/4" thick steel hinge didn't bend, it's the thin steel of the body that it bolts to. Take apart a spare hinge and take the straight part (that attached to the body) and weld it to a nice long steel bar. Now it can be bolted in place and it should be easy to "encourage" the mount back to its original angle. Undo the years of impacts by pushing back the other way. It would take a lot of time removing the tool and testing the door, but I am convinced this is the way to fix this problem.

What do you think?!

I should mention, I've got a whole set of rebuilt hinges that will be swapped out during the body work phase. You can see how worn out the hinge is in this photo. I will test the fit with the new hinges before proceeding with my plan.