Door Striker pins

[Chris Williams]

Rich, fancy having a go at my passenger door at Whitby???? Beer tokens given in exchange :wink:
Chris

[Guinney1971]

best make them Coke tokens, he dont drink beer

[Guinney1971]

FWIW, my doors are complete b'stards to shut too, but I'm not messing about with mine
(or bribing RichH to do it) until I've got new door seals.

[Chris Williams]

I have new seals to (came with car) so dont know whos they are but as most of the stuff was bought early 2000's then it's probably DMC stuff and the P/X side is really tight, drivers side is great. Was wondering if some of the 'smaller' seals might be better. Will bring a couple of bottles of Coke with me then. Might even hide them in the doors to complete the car for all the comments on route :lol:
Chris

[JamesRGUK]

I had some door pins cut and welded off centre, it means you have a lot more lateral adjustment as you can stop the pin at different locations with the use of shims.

I have to confess my door alignment may not look 100% perfect but no leaks, no rattles and they shut and latch really nicely.

James

[Guinney1971]

oh to have doors that shut without breaking your teeth or let water leak in at every opportunity....

[Rissy]

stunned_monkey Wrote:Frankly I can't understand why anyone would deliberately and badly compromise the function of a door because it looks a tiny bit wonky when against the panels around it.

Consider me to be a bit like Hyacinth Bucket (or should that be "Bouquet"). I consider that more people are going to SEE the car, than realise the doors aren't working to their optimal capacity. So more people can enjoy the car, by seeing a nice looking, sexy sports car, looking all trim and posh in the sunlight on a nice summers day, not a car where it looks like the doors are hanging on by their finger nails, about the drop off the side of the car. We're not talking a tiny bit here. When Welmoed was finished. There was a good 3/4 of an inch in places! Now THEY were BIG panel gaps! So, i'm preserving a better image of the car for the majority out there, by "keeping up appearances" until I can fix them the best I can, so that i'm not acting like the emperor in his new clothes any more. :wink:

[Chris P]

Hi Rissy,

I wouldn't be too concerned with what Joe public may think. Most are simply delighted and amazed to see a Delorean. They only glance at specific bits. Its us the owners who get themselves wound up about little bits of the car, that don't look right........to US.

Having spent 30 odd years in the classic car game I have dealt with some right "picky folk", concourse people, you see them at every big show.

When I was in the chrome plating game, they would bring their chrome bumper ( or radiator or door handle...or whatever) and say " if you twist this in the light at this angle....cant you see its just dosent look completely flat....there's a slight dip, or mark in the middle"....or some such comment, and they are right, but the new ones, made 20/50/70 years ago were often much worse! People try for perfection when they have a love for a particular type of car and many times it simply isn't possible. They cease to enjoy the 99% of the car that is lovely and fret over the 1% that isn't . It can make them very Anal!

In the case of a Delorean, they were never a "precision product" and as dear old Quentin Willson said, "you can throw a cat through the panel gap" .....if yours door is overlapping slightly, then dear old Quentin is wrong ....yet again! ( he gets a good ..or not so good..mention in the book!)

Folk will love seeing your car, wonky door and all ( when displayed with the doors open, they won't see it anyway).

I started this thread not because my doors looked a bit out...most of mine have done so, ( except my 83 car) no, it was purely practical, I like them so shut ( and open) smoothly and not lock me or my passenger in!

[flux3d]

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get the doors on 10719 to fit perfectly. The passenger side fits really well, but the drivers side (which its obvious the PO adjusted quite a bit) always needed a good slam to shut correctly. I had some good advice from people on the DMCtalk website. They said to do te following to adjust the doors.

1) take the inner seal, striker pins and gas strut off the door.

2) Carefully loosen the bolts at the hinges.

3) slam the door shut a few times, keeping an eye on the fit of the doors.

4) when happy fit the striker pins one at a time, adjusting the first one so the door closes really well, then the next.

5) when the door closes well with both pins re-fit the seal and gas struts.

Now, this worked wonders for me. BUT when I fitted the gas strut again it seemed to throw everything out slightly. Still closed much better, but not as smoothly as without the strut.

One problem with the drivers door on mine is that the front hinge just doesn't want to budge at all. The whole door needs to move a few millimetres inwards on the hinge but it refuses. I was going to post a question on it in the general forum to see if anyone had any ideas. If I could fix this then my doors would close like they should. By doing the above I've also discovered that the torsion bar seems to be under-torqued as well. With the gas strut off the door doesn't lift at all! Maybe this would help as well by applying force to the front of the door, rather than everything being on the back.

[stunned_monkey]

JamesRGUK Wrote:I had some door pins cut and welded off centre, it means you have a lot more lateral adjustment as you can stop the pin at different locations with the use of shims.

I believe I was present when that weld failed wasn't I? :wink:

[JamesRGUK]

stunned_monkey Wrote:

JamesRGUK Wrote:I had some door pins cut and welded off centre, it means you have a lot more lateral adjustment as you can stop the pin at different locations with the use of shims.

I believe I was present when that weld failed wasn't I? :wink:

Lol, yes that was my first attempt at welding, lots of 'bird poo' but not much strength, you'll be pleased to know that I had them redone by someone with a little more welding skill than me.

J