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Stumped - Door won't close

ok. I'm at a loss. The beast has been in the garage for about the past six weeks. I repaired a few areas of rust on the frame, replace the floor boards and a few rust through spots on the body. "Discovered" many other oppurtunities to buy new parts (springs, alternator, etc). It's finally painted and almost all the way back together. I put the doors on, and they won't close. No problem I thought, maybe the hinges need to be adjusted slightly.

No such luck.

I measured the door frame opening on both sides (latch to dash?). Passenger side is 33.5", Drivers side is 33". So it looks like I lost .5" on the drivers side door opening. There is only one explaination I can come up with: The body flexed while I was doing the floor work. I have a few thoughts on how I might fix this, but was wondering if anyone here has had luck similar to mine.

Here's what I'm thinking:

  1. hydrualic jack to push the opening .5"
  2. large pry bar of sorts to direct pressure on the floor under the door area.
  3. sell the jeep and buy a new pair of shoes.

Any thoughts? (constructive only please! :) )

Reply to
Doug
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Reply to
L.W.(ßill) Hughes III

Ouch!

Man that sucks the big one.

Your body mounts are obviously bad. They have gotten soft or have rotted out allowing the sag to happen.

You now have made that sag permanent with the new floors....

Can you see the wrinkle in the tub just at the back bottom corner of the door? I bet if you run a straight edge there it will be obvious.

Short of removing the floor and starting over, 'maybe' you could make a vertical cut at the back door bottom and jack up the tub under the door middle to open up this cut, then reinforce the heck out of it while fixing that rotted body mount just in front of the back wheel.???

I had the opposite problem when my rear body mounts rotted away. My door opening got too big to grab the door latch. Basically I had to have someone lift up on my tail light so I could close the door. I had that kink or ripple at the bottom door corner.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

Doug wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

Think I would look at body mounts and change before I did any cut an weld, when I changed the mounts in my CJ there were 2 washers on that paticular body mount, almost 1/8" each, I didn't put them back on and when I went to use the door I found it bound on top, so I had to take that mount bolt back out and put in the washers. Mine is a fiberglass tub and will flex a lot more then his, but it may be worth trying the mount before cutting.

Reply to
Greg

Good point Greg.

He could be lucky and it still could be soft enough to bend back with a spacer under that mount. A 1/2" is a fair bit though.

Mike

Greg wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

Thanks for the suggestions. I placed seven washers between the body & mount. The door will close now, but it's not a "perfect" fit. I suppose it will get me through the winter though, and in the spring I can fix it properly.

If anyone is interested, I think I know where I went wrong. I took the jeep apart down to the frame. The section of the frame in need of repair was best fixed with the tub off. While the tub was off I figured I'd fix the problem rust areas. One of the more extensive areas was the driver's side floor (almost non-existent!) and the side immediately in front of the door. I cut out the bad sections, then cleaned the surface rust with a wire wheel. After the rust was removed I welded in new metal, did the filler thing and primed/painted. What I believe I may have done is moved the tub with the floor / side section removed thus changing the dimensions of the opening. welding the new floor in sealed the deal!

In retrospect I should have tacked in a piece of angle iron to keep the opening from changing.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

Doug

Reply to
Doug

A tree fell on my '93 YJ and bent the tub, and I ended up with about your problem. I put the base of a hi-lift between the lower roll bar mount point at the floor behind the seat, and the lifting jaw against the dash with a 2x4 to protect the dash. Then I just cranket it to get the right distance hinge to latch. The bottom of the tub was wrinkled too, so I straightened it the best I could with hammers, then got new 6" tall rocker guards (A2Zfab) to hide the wrinkles. Cost $1000 to buy used hood, fender, grill, have them painted, and the rocker guards. Ins co paid $3000 for the damage, cool. Added and 8.8 and new Swampers for the extra cash.

Reply to
Don

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