1950 fi rt door out of alignment
 

Hi,


.....my rt front door is out of alignment of my 50 f1..............it "hangs" on low on lower left corner....can be shut with some force...............it has a little slack in the hinge when lifted, but not enough to bring door into alignment............


.........in reading my "reproduction" ford repair manual......it suggests putting wedge in lower hinge and shutting door to bend the hinge and cause the door to raise the lower left side and "square" the door.......


any thoughts and or suggestions.............thanks...............

Before bending anything, you need to determine which way the door needs to move to fit in the opening correctly. Maybe the top hinge needs to go forward.....

Can you post a pic of the door shut and the gaps at front and rear edges?

thanks and more info
 

.........will try and post pics..........


........in the meantime, when the door is unlatched, the seam on the door, below the window, is lower than the matching seam on the door post adjacent to the door handle...........when shut, it takes a pretty firm "slam", the seams line up pretty close............so I would say the bottom rear of the door is low and needs to be raised in order for the door to close aligned................


.........you can also see on the striker plate located on the door post that the wear, excessive, is on the lower half of the plate......... indicating the door is hitting the post low due to being lower than the post........

Before making any adjustments, it's important to determine why it's not fitting correctly. Does it really only need an adjustment? Are the hinge pins tight? Or do you have more serious problems, like the hinge pillar being rusted and/or loose at the floor causing the door to droop? That's an extremely common problem with these trucks, and no amount of bending will fix that.

Here is how to post pic's on FTE

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ure-guide.html

My brother bought this F1 off the web. Looks pretty good doesn't it? Well, the drivers door fit so poorly due to rust in the pillar and some repaired damage in the cowl, that it would barely close [with much effort]. The hinge pins were welded to the top of each hinge. The only fix I could come up with was to remove the door and grind about a quarter inch off of the face of each hinge where it attaches to door post. By doing that he gained a door that closes much easier, and lines up better. Not the correct repair, but it accomplished what he wanted. He has three F1's so he won't wear out the repair.

Another question I have is the truck original. Has it been worked on or altered since new. The reason I am asking is the cab I have on my '49 F-2 came from a '48-50 F-7 fire truck with 3000 original miles and was absolutely rust free and never had any work done to it and the doors fit horribly. The gap was too big on the rear upper corner (if I remember correctly) and tight on the bottom front corners. The door opening was out of square since the truck came out of the factory. I had to use a port-a-power to push the corners apart and get the doors to fit with a equal gap around the doors. These trucks were not put together very well, pretty much thrown together to get them out of the plant and sold.

Maybe, if your truck is all original it came from the factory that way and just needs a little adjusting. If it's been worked on in the past then anything could be wrong with it.

..I believe the truck to be the original cab..although the floor has been patched (poorly) and the truck was repainted back in the 90's ( another poorly done work )............but it is really solid..............have run a magnet all over the cab and find no indication of patching to the cab.................HOWEVER, the left front fender and front end metal has been replaced and do not know why this was done (another poor job, not even all the bolts were replaced )...........so it could very well be there are "alignment problems" with the cab in general...........


...........the door itself hangs low on the rear side..........as I mentioned earlier the "trim" line on the rear of the door and rear of the cab do not match up............the cab line is lower..........and even when closed and latched it still is about 1/16 to 1/8 inch lower.............and the strike plate of the rear cab post is worn much more on the lower half............

I don't see how the lower rear corner of the door can be low, yet the accent line on the door is higher than the one on the cab?

......cab line is lower than the line on rear post..........