After straightening the sheet metal, replacing two rivets at the lower braces on the sills and installing the wood kit on my 82b cab, I've found that the doors no longer fit the openings.
The bottom of the doors measure 29 inches and the door openings measure 28.5 inches. The bottom edge of the doors overlap the cab by about three quarters of an inch at the corner below the latch. The gap on the hinge side of the doors is about one eighth of an inch. I have the cab bolted to the frame on blocks but not tight. We did weld two cracks at the bottom of the doors under the hinges
I've posted pictures to try to illustrate the problem. The body man who did the work on the sheet metal cannot understand how we lost the half inch and I can't either unless the doors are supposed to overlap. I should mention that the doors fit at the top and the hinge side and down the latch side to the belt rail. Any help will be greatly appreciated by me and my body man!!
I went and measured the right door on my 31 and opening is 28 1/2" at the top and
28" and the bottom. The outside of the door is 29 1/4" at the top and 29 1/8" at
the bottom. The door overlaps the body about 3/8" at the top and 3/4" at the bottom.
This truck is unrestored but in good shape. I don't think you will get anything to fit right
without getting it shimmed and bolted down tight. Check out the link to Marcos site
it may help understand what is going on. http://www.abarnyard.com/workshop/door-1.htm
Thanks for the link. I will try some shims to get the gaps closer. Also comforting to hear that your doors were wider than the opening. I thought I was loosing my mind! I'll post more pictures as I add shims so I can quit having to get my wife to help me every time I take pictures to put on this site. I need a lot of practice.
Another point I'd like to throw out is I didn't think the truck cab would change all that much with the use of shims. Time will tell.
Again, thanks for the help. N. Reed
Nice looking bodywork on the cab. I notice you have what looks like new roof side panels, wondering if you bought them or re- done the old ones. I get up to Matthews Ind. in July, any chance of getting a look at your truck.
Good question about the door fit and really helpful link posted by Bob . Interesting about how to get the door opening back into parallelaplum with the shims. I hadn't gave that much thought when I took it apart.
I'm going to do some measuring on my cab and doors, I'm sure they overlaped in the rear of the door.
The body work on this truck was done by the best sheet metal man I have ever seen. He is EXPENSIVE but well worth it. I've been bending hinges to get the gap within tolerance on the hinge side of the doors and am going to try some shims to align the belt rail. I guess I wont worry about the overlap as it will be less than three eighths inch.
Would like to show anyone my project at any time! If you get in this area just look me up in the phone book under Norman R. Reed.
Now they do! I bent hinges and tightened the body bolts and got the results shown in the following pictures. Put the latches in and the doors close and latch with a very satisfying clunk. God bless a 20 ton press and 5 hours of patients.
I'm almost ready to take it back to my paint man for finish coat. thanks for the information. It helped a LOT! N Reed
Need to reply to shorthaul about the top side panels. These are the ones off the truck as it came out of the woods in Minnesota. They had a screw hole every 3 inches all along the entire length plus the back had the holes as did the sun visor. Whoever had this truck before me had screwed a piece of sheet metal on the top which protected the inside and all the window glass was intact. My body man filled all these holes (about 40) and straightened the back,top panels,and the sun visor which is one reason his bill was so high. The picture on my avatar is the day we unloaded the truck from Minnesota. See some of the pictures above for the results of his work.
I'm 67 years old and not willing to spend the years necessary to learn body work that would result in the job he did for me.
I was hoping the top panels were new, they really look good. I have to replace mine and was looking for a good source. Where did you get the wood, all looks very nice.
You live in a great area to putt around with your truck when finished, the covered bridge in Mathews seems like a good destination for a short trip.
I plan to go down to the covered bridge festival this fall. Hope to have the truck drivable by then. I got the wood from bratton's along with a LOT of other things. In fact I'm going to call in another order today. They always send exactly what I order and from New York to here only takes about 2 days. They have a number to call just for questions and most of the time you get Walt Bratton himself on the line and he knows his stuff. I've tried other vendors but I get really good service from bratton's so I just stay with them.
