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MG MGA - Lining up doors with rear fender ?

To make the doors flush with the rear fender, is it necessary to shim out the fender or is there an easy way to fix this problem? The doors do not line up properly.
R Barry

The first thing to do is to make sure you have the hinges adjusted and shimmed the best you can. If everything is perfect except for one corner then possibly the door is twisted. On mine, the bottom rear corner of one door was sticking out, and no amount of adjustment would help. I used a 2x4 inside the door(had no interior in yet) and carefully twisted the door. It worked out great, and the door now fits perfectly.
Jeff Schultz

R,

There are a miriad of adjustments available to tweak this in including twisting the door. I suspect an all too common cause is replacement outer rockers that are incorrect. (Search the Archive on this subject.)

The front fender may be shimmed where the vertical reinforcement bolts to the body just forward of the front door post. Shimming the top outward versus the bottom will bring the lower rear door corner inward. the trick is to not screw up the front door to fender contour match in the process. In addition it may be shifted up or down to alter the contour wheere it mates with the front door gap.

The folks at Abingdon provided ample adgustment points to correct a surprising degree of variation. A tribute to their artistry is how swiftly they must have executed these "tweaks" Hopefully someone will capture this story for posterity.

BOL,
Doug
D Sjostrom

While the possibilities of adjustment are endless, so is the amount of time possible for this task. My restoration of my '58 coupe was fast, all but the driver's door. The entire car took a little over one year. The alignment and latch setting of this one door took 9 months. Just finished it yesterday. It closes, it even latches and locks and it opens from both the inside and outside, but is not by any means perfect. I would say this was the toughest part of my restoration.
Tom Balutis

Here is a good description of a method of aligning the lower corner of the door to the fender. Looks like it would be fairly easy.
http://home.comcast.net/~eastmanb1/MGAdoor4.htm

Bill Young

I used a 2x4 just about exactly like is shown in the link that Bill posted. Like I said before, it worked great.
Jeff Schultz

Bill,

Question for ya. Are the door inner panels(door pockets) normally pop-rivited in place or are they machine screwed in place. Couldn't make out from your pictures.

Cheers - Dennis
Dennis & Pat Rainey

The big mistake I did on my coupe was to mix up the hinges. And I just did not mix up the original to my car ones,I had to add two other sets. After working on VW Bugs for many years where you could mix and match parts from many different years I did not know any better, what a HEADACHE. So the moral of this story for the new restorers and members is to label everything, pictures did not help because everything was cleaned & repainted. Gary
gary starr

Dennis, can't answer your question. The photo link I posted was created by another MGA enthusiast whom I should have given credit but can't reach the home page now to get his name.
Bill Young

Hey, guys,

I have been a bit busy this year and have fallen behind on everything. I am working on a few updates including more on the distributor machine, my "new" winter beater Porsche 944, an old Van Norman Mill, and several electronic gadgets I've collected.

I didn't touch the Jag XK150 this year. Betwen the 944 and the family cars, I had all I could handle. It seemed everything needed brakes, CV joints, Air conditioning, etc.

My main home page is:

http://home.comcast.net/~eastmanb1/

Distributor repair:

http://home.comcast.net/~eastmanb1/Distributor_work/Dizzytest_simple1.htm

My door pockets are screwed in place. Original? probably not but you can't see them anyway. I have had a recurring issue with the metal strap hooked over the door panel coming loose. I have again increased the screw size since these pictures were taken- hopefully they will hold.

Regards,
Bill
Bill Eastman

Hey, guys,

I have been a bit busy this year and have fallen behind on everything. I am working on a few updates including more on the distributor machine, my "new" winter beater Porsche 944, an old Van Norman Mill, and several electronic gadgets I've collected.

I didn't touch the Jag XK150 this year. Betwen the 944 and the family cars, I had all I could handle. It seemed everything needed brakes, CV joints, Air conditioning, etc.

My main home page is:

http://home.comcast.net/~eastmanb1/

Distributor repair:

http://home.comcast.net/~eastmanb1/Distributor_work/Dizzytest_simple1.htm

My door pockets are screwed in place. Original? probably not but you can't see them anyway. I have had a recurring issue with the metal strap hooked over the door panel coming loose. I have again increased the screw size since these pictures were taken- hopefully they will hold.

Regards,
Bill
Bill Eastman

Sorry about the double post. First one "failed" so I hit the back button and resent.

Bill
Bill Eastman

This thread was discussed between 27/11/2005 and 11/12/2005

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This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.