Ever since I bought my fiero the drivers side door has made a bad clunking sound when I drive over a bump. After changing the hinge pins and bushing a few times and going out of my mind dealing with the noise I think I finally found out what the problem is. This may help some of you in finding the source of your clunking doors as well if nothing else stops it.

This pic is of a door that DOES NOT clunk. This is the latch, pay close attention to the area circled in blue.

NOW, here is one that clunks.

Here is a different angle on the clunking door latch.

Notice the differance? The clunking door latch seems to have been 'hammered out' in that one area. Just thought I would share this information, I see a lot of 'door clunking' posts in here. Maybe someday we can all be clunk-free!

Wow,cool,you saved me having to look at my latch/striker and figure that one out,looks like maybe some door edge guard or something might do the trck for awhile anyways.
That's one of the small annoyances I have on my car,but not for long.

all you have to do is loosen the striker bolt and move it around till it lines up then retighten it. Its just a threaded shaft with the nut plate captured in the door jam. see the other post in the question on doors hitting. it should move between 1/8 and 1/4 inch any direction.

your bad door does need to have the latch mechanism replaced. the wear you have is from the play you used to have and lack of lubrication. I always put a dab of lithium grease on the slides, WD 40 all in the latch.

[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 07-20-2001).]

So basically what you are saying is that if my hing pins are loose that this could ALSO happen and hten I need to replace that guide?

could be. especially if the latch is not adjusted correctly and its not greased. I know most of you who show your cars, clean these and hinges all pretty n clean. But they have to have lube. metal to metal is what wears em out. One example is Ford Explorers. Make sure you grease them often, There notorious for getting loose and replacing the upper hinge involves removing the dash for access to one bolt. Let me tell you taking the dash out of a loaded explorer is a 2 day job. I had to do 3 of them in one month for one dealer.

the 'guide' is part of the latch assembly and
comes as one piece.

[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 07-21-2001).]

The strike pin is non adjustable in many Fiero. GM only punched the hole for it bi enough to fit the bolt and the cage nut has no play. You'll be lucky if you can move it more than a mm or two.

The later pictures show wear on the latch. Wear on the bottom of the latch indicates a strick that is too low. It can also be a door that is adjusted too high. The fact the bottom wear is bright means that is the main current issue.

wear on the top of the latch was likely caused by the loose hinge pins.

The door is loose mainly because the old pins wore the top of the latch body and probably the latching ear toward the body. When the door is shut, the strike is all the wah back in the latch. A worn ear means the door is not tight to the body. that lets it bounce. A worn body means it has plenty of room to bounce when it does.

I'd start looking for a new latch. by the time you adjust that one to stop the bounce you could end up with the door binding somewhere else.

The adjustment for the door has to be done from inside it. Notes on that are in my cave.

[This message has been edited by theogre (edited 07-21-2001).]