align the doors on a vit6

[flimsyboat]

hello everyone what is the best way to get the doors aligned properley and evenly? some gaps on mine you can put 2 fingers into. would be better to take them off and re-fit as they dont completley align with the rubber on the hood either?
many thaks for you help

[bxbodger]

Where are the bad gaps in your doors?

Basically it's all fixable but down to hours and hours and hours of fiddling........(mad) and either an extra pair of hands or a selection of bits of wood to stick under the door to support it while you loosen/tighten nuts.

Before you do anything make sure that all the catches are working properly and the springy bits on both the A post part of the catch and the A post part of the safety catch are cleaned out and moving properly as well. Loosen or remove the A post part of the catches while you get the basic adjustment right.The doors are pretty heavy- astrophysicists searching for the missing matter in the universe need look no further than Vitesse/Herald doors.......I found it easiest to set mine up properly when I was repairing them and they were completely stripped out, winders, quarterlights, everything.

You have adjustment both where the door bolts to the A post (the bolts go into moving plates) where you get both up and down adjustment and angle adjustment. Also ensure that the paper gaskets still exist here as well as they do make a difference to how far in or out the door sits. You gewt some in/out adjustment on the door itself where the hinges are attached- the big crosshead screws may need a good thump with the impact driver though.

Assuming the gap is generally even and the two finger gap bit is the bonnet edge of the door you may also need to adjust the bonnet rather than the door.....yet more faffing and fiddling- the overriders need to come off and in my case anyway I needed to file out the brackets a bit as well. Also note that the factory manual although it shows the peocedure for adjusting the bonnet to the doors is actually incorrect as regards the assembly of the bonnet hinge parts.

The hood fit to the door glasses is another kettle of fish- there is adjustment in the hood frame to get the thing to fit around the glass, where the header rail is bolted to the frame there's slotted adjustment so the whole frame can be moved so it meets the glass correctly. There's also a bit of adjustment in the quarter lights so the angle can be altered to fit better against the screen pillars..................Believe me, you're going to be faffing about for days!!!

If however your doors are sticking out at the bottom only where they meet the B post you may have tub spread- again fairly easy to sort, just time consuming.

[Mark Hammond]

Best bet is to get an official workshop manual as this could be a long and drawn out process.  My favourite method is to start at the front and work back.  At what ends are the door gaps bad?  If they are ok between the rear wing and the door, then you need to adjust the bonnet, if everything is good at the sharp end but they are gappy at the rear wing end, it might be that the rear tub needs realignment.   It is possible and likely (as yours is a convertible) that the bulkhead has sagged.  The culprit is usually incorrectly fitted and misaligned front outriggers.  The remedy is to fit packing spacers under the bulkhead rear body mountings to perk this bit up.  How does the hood fit?  Post or pm me some photos and I'll point you in the right direction.  If you are stuck in getting an official workshop manual, I could email you the relevant pages.  Good luck.

Mark

[wukkie1]

look on e bay herald/vitesse body fitting manual

[Ridgetone Triumph]

Item number 230540746767.

This is an excellent book.
Regards
Pete

[heraldcoupe]

Has the car been subject to any kind of rebuild?

Cheers,
Bill.

[69vitesse]

You can download the Triumph Herald Bodynotes here:


http://rapidshare.com/files/426419964/bodynotes_herald.pdf

[flimsyboat]

hi everyone thanks for the replies, the gap if talking about is to the rear of the door, the drivers door also seems to be "sagging" slightly as it doesnt match up to the rest of the body shape, whilst fiddling today i also found out that the passenger door bolts that connect to the a post are rounded off and one of them is basically holding nothing at all! think that might be part of the problem, ive also found that the bottom of the rear side of the door sticks out a mile from the alignment of the sill/body yet it all connects and locks up at the top.

the hood meanwhile is really tight on the passenger side yet the drivers side i can near enough get my whole hand between the glass and b-post, im presuming the doors have been off the car as it has been resprayed at some point in the past.
will try to get some pics up asap when i get a new camera, the old one took a dive in the ocean whilst on holiday! woops!

[Mark Hammond]

Sounds like a combination of sagging bulkhead and tub spread!  Post pics and I'll help you from there, but I reckon It's more than just door alignment.

M.

[ianb]

2729 wrote:

You can download the Triumph Herald Bodynotes here:


http://rapidshare.com/files/426419964/bodynotes_herald.pdf

Terrific!!   Very interesting and informative.  Thanks for posting.

Ian

[Pete Lewis]

If the bottom of the door is well proud of the B post and its hard in and tight against the seal at the B post waist then its got Tub Spread,  not covered in the body manual , do a ( above)  there's a variety of methods to improve it

let know as this is  a fairly common situation down to ageism      Pete

[alpinemauve]

silly question alert:

I'm about to take my doors off - easier to tart up, clear the crap out of the insides, repaint and re-fit.
Gaps were very good prior to starting so should I try to keep them on?
Its possible but would make more jobs more awkward.

Theres no real way to mark the door position prior as the hinge retainer plate inside the Apost always drops down when taking hinges off - any thoughts?

[thescrapman]

Drill a hole right through the hinge, door pillar and retainer plates top and bottom.

You can then insert a drill the other way round and everything will line up again afterwards.

Worked for my bonnet.

Cheers

Colin

[flimsyboat]

Hello everyone, sorry for the long delay in getting some pictures up, but here they are, any help any one can give would be much appreciated on how to sort these gaps out, some time soon the body will have to come off for repairs to chassis and bodywork so any advice to refit them how they should be will be much appreciated

<a href="&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d69/zeppelin_123/Door%20Gaps/">     http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d69/zeppelin_123/Door%20Gaps/</a>

[Mark Hammond]

Looks like the bulkhead has settled on the back mounts.  Undo the mounts, pack the mounts with shims/washers to raise and then rehang the doors to get the correct desired gaps.  Pete Lewis is our resident expert on this particular fault.

Mark

[Pete Lewis]

Marks right the baulkhead has lean back, only use one rubber but as many metal spacers/washers as needed to tip the top of the A post forwards about 1/2" or more from its current angle.by adding spacers to the 2 mounts under the sill.
this will give you the gap at the top of the vent frame
taper gap ns door to bonnet,,  remove overider and raise the slotted link to bring the bonnet up higher.
taper gap bonnet to Bhead screen panel adjust the tie rod turnbuckle (the rod &  nut with the 2 lock nuts) , this controls the bonnet /bhead gap, this will change if you tip the Bhead forwards
doors wide at the bottom of the B post is tub spread needs some tough work to pull this back in .
some use rachet starps across the body, some make up a tournquet ,
easy on a saloon as there are  lugs at the top of the wing not so on concertible
did think attach to the door striker fixings by they are a bit low down,
dont recomend usins seat belt mounts  
there a lot of load going on when you do this
straps around the body should work but make up some solid ply ??  to take the load or you will colapse the wing
we had to over pull to 1 .5" to regainfrom  1/2" spead

we concocted a threaded rod and odds and sods to drag the wing tops back in.

Pete

[flimsyboat]

Many thanks for the advice, so to sort out the tub spread the two wings need to be pulled in towards each other? Sorry for all these questions just want to make sure that was definately what you meant, thanks again

[Pete Lewis]

yes thats correct  ,  to get it to remain where you want it it takes some stick , dont be surprised at some Ooows  and Arghs  with a lot of  creaking and cracking and watch the rear deck , we cracked the paint when the rear deck bowed due to the loads applied   but you will like the door fit when its done .  all tucked in at the bottom

we pulled one side against the other, gets a bit complicated if you want to prove or rectify just one side ,this would need some significant jiging to control alignment.

have Fun     Peter

[bxbodger]

I had the problem of one rotten rear chassis extension and one good one causing the tub to spread more on one side than the other so I couldn't pull it straight across the top. I sorted mine by pulling with ratcheting luggage straps looped through the seat belt anchor on the inner sill diagonally across to the top of the opposite B post where I looped it around a big block of wood behind the hoodwell rail to spread the load.

I used two straps at a time on each side, pulling one up until it couldn't take any more and then starting on the other strap to get a bit more pull- it works, it's scarey because the straps become very very taut and there's a lot of creaking, but it does at least give you confidence in the integrity of the seat belt anchors! You can see the door bottoms moving relevant to the tub as you do it, and I found I had to overdo it a little bit because when you let the tension off the tub springs out slightly. It took an hour or so doing a bit at a time each side but it did work :)

[Ron]

Hi,
I've got this particular problem trying to rehang the doors on my Vitesse project, the guys on the site have been great with their help. particularly Pete. But at the end of the day they're a real b***** to fit correctly and will take hours of fiddling unless you drop lucky. The Herald body fitting booklet is good but assumes that everything is brand new!
Sometimes you have to think outside the box. I had to put three packing spacers between the chassis and body at the B post and one packing spacer at the A post to get one door fixed, the other one is as bad but with the recent very cold weather haven't yet had the opportunity to try and get it sorted.
TD Fitchetts from Telford sell some really good alloy spacers that do the job well. They're about 4 or 5mm thick with a bit cut out so that you can slide them on or off without having to take out the long mounting bolt each time. They're £1.50 each but they save a hell of a lot of time and frustration! Well worth it.
But it's usually down to a lot of trial and error and when you know which hinge to adjust it's a great help. I did all the hinge bolts up and then loosened just one hinge off at a time to find out what adjustments could be made with each hinge and took it from there. If you find an easy way then bottle it and sell it (after telling us all first).(pray)

[Pete Lewis]

Like the bottle idea Ron, replace hot tea with hot toddy and all the gaps start to look better, so did the mrs.

Pete

[wukkie1]

hi in the picture you are taking a measurement what is it and where measured from ive a saloon vitesse mk1 regards bill

[Pete Lewis]

the tape was really just to see what we were achieving ,

from memory ( Hmmm)  the  dimension from the top of the door seal flange was around 46.5" across the car   but that could vary car to car,  the width is "whatever you need to get the door to run flush down the B post  and an even regular gap around the door for the seal to take up.

to get a good shut load you need the original seal with an open lip not a balloon tube .
if you have a seal with a ballon tube you can with a sharp stanley blade knife all round to turn the tube into a lip,  take it steady or it ends up real wonky  but  the door will shut nicely without having to slam it
also make sure the sliding wedge in the striker plate is free to move  

Pete