Door adjustment
Claude, I tried to start a thread about door adjustment last month but didn't receive any response at all! My query was slightly different. However, the problem you describe is one I can help you with.
When I took the car to Brian Morelli a year or two ago he said that the trailing edge of the doors often dropped because people lent on the window frame and bent the metal frame by the hinge. He gave the back of the door a good heave and all was well .... but not permanently. He said that the hinges do not generally wear very much. But, there is a tendency for the area around the bottom hinge to rust. It just gets too weak to take the weight properly. Have a look at it. If that is the problem, the door has to come off and there is some quite simple welding to be done to repair.
On the 412 the hinges are secured by counter sunk bolts with a hexagon socket in the middle. I think you have Philips headed bolts instead. I found it was easier to get at the bolts securing the hinges onto the door rather than onto the A a pillar. Having broken several hexagon tools, used huge quantities of WD 40 and so on, the solution was to weld nuts on to the counter sunk heads and shift them with a big mole wrench. (That`s why the A piller is difficult: no room for handle of the wrench to be turned.) Surprisingly, perhaps, these threads inside the door were fine and, as I say, the welding job quite simple. New countersunk bolts seem readily availabele.
My thread asked for some help in adjusting the door once solid and sound. I don't believe there are any small adjusters and I wonder if there are any ideas out there.P
|