Are they adjustable and in what directions? I only see that the lower hinge will spin on the higher bolt... and that's it. The thing is my doors are kind of "sideways". What I mean is that the top of the door sticks too much out and the lower part goes too much inside. I hope you understand what I mean - is there a way to adjust them?

Thanks.

I checked the service manual to see if there were any specific instructions on aligning the door, but there aren't any. It basically says that when replacing a hinge assembly with a new one, scribe the location of the old hinge onto the door post and re-install the new hinge in the same location... really useful eh?

For your alignment problem, I believe what you want to do is loosen the bolts that hold the door to the hinges (as opposed to the bolts that hold the hinges to the post). I believe the holes are oversized and will allow you to twist the bottom of the door outwards and the top of the door inwards. It's normally a two person job because the door is very heavy and will likely slip from it's current location under it's own weight after you've got a few bolts loose, so I'd suggest you mark the location of the bolt heads before you loosen them to give you a guide where to reset them.

Like Blooze says, adjust the hinges at the door. If you loosen one at a time the door won't drop.
Loosen the top hinge & move the door inward, tighten it, loosen the bottom hinge & move it outward, tighten it. Should cure your problem. If it doesn't, the car may have been wrecked & if so you may have to result to shims under the bottom hinge at the cowl (instead of the door).
HTH,
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Custom Fiberglass Parts

[This message has been edited by Tha Driver (edited 10-23-2011).]

The doors actually have 7 axis of alignment, some of which you can accomplish by only loosening the hinges at the door.
To adjust the 2 of the axis of alignment, you will need to loosen the hinges at the cowl.
It's really pretty simple once you understand it, and understand that you should only do one axis at a time until you get the door set properly.
I will try to add some diagrams to this post later to illustrate the 7 adjustment axis.

[This message has been edited by randye (edited 10-24-2011).]

Yeah the car was wrecked sometime in the past but I'm pretty sure that didn't blow the doors because I remember they were fitted nicely. Only after replacing the hinge pins and bushings the doors are this way now so I guess I did something wrong. Thanks for the info, I'll try to do this next weekend.

Hmmm very interesting. My door lines up pretty well, but will never seal fully with the window rolled up. I have already adjusted the window and seemed to help, but never knew you could adjust the door.

Hey randye,

I look forward to see some pics if you do get around to posting them. Might have to try and tackle this over the weekend to see if it helps.

Ken~

Yes very interestedin the diagrams for adjust ment... My doors are drooping in the rear.... I would love to have them right!

I think my drivers door could be adjusted out a bit at the top.......

Ok, here goes....

I had to blunder through this myself and "discover" how this works and to be frank, it's a PITA!
I don't know any other way to do it for now, but the following is what I discerned about how the Fiero doors "adjust".

As I mentioned before, there are several axis that can be adjusted on the Fiero doors and both sides are the same.
After I stopped and thought about it, I realized that there are 7 basic axis of adjustment to each door.
It's only a matter of which hinges you loosen and what end of the hinge you loosen to make the required adjustments.
So, to avoid being any more pedantic about this, lets just get right to the different basic movement axis of the doors.

It's obvious that the door hinges can be moved at either the *door* side, by reaching inside the door structure and loosening the bolts inside. or the hinges can be moved by loosening the bolts at the cowl, (body structure), side.
One of the bolts on the lower hinge must be loosened from inside the car.

The 7 basic axis of Adjustment and what portion of the hinge must be loosened:

By loosening both the upper and lower hinges at the door side, the door can be "rotated" about an imaginary axis longitudinal to the car chassis
By loosening ONLY the bottom hinge on the door side and very slightly loosening the top hinge on the dor side, the door can be pivoted relative to the top hinge to move the bottom of the door in or out.
The inverse happens if you completely loosen the top hinge at the door side and slightly loosen the bottom hinge to pivot the top of the door in or out relative to the bottom hinge point


By loosening both the upper and lower hinges at the door side, the door may be moved horizontally inboard or outboard relative to the chassis structure:


By loosening either the top or the bottom hinge, or *both* hinges at the cowl side, the rear end of the door can be moved up or down in an arc relative to the hinges.
(This adjustment cures a lot of the "droopy door" conditions at the door handle and the latch.)


By loosening both the upper and lower hinges at the door side, the entire door may be adjusted directly up and down relative to the chassis:


By loosening both the upper and lower hinges at the cowl side, the entire door may be adjusted fore and aft realtive to the chassis:
(Note, tthis is the same for adjusting the angle of the door to cure the "droopy" condition)



NOTE: If hinge pins are worn, broken or holes in the hinges themselves are worn out of spec they should be repaired first before adjusting the doors

I have found it VERY helpful to get wooden shims, (wedges), like the type that are used to shim and align household interior door frames and use them to evenly shim the Fiero doors at the bottom between the sill and the door structure and work by trial and error, opening and closing the door until you get the door gap as even as possible all around the door and the door latches easily, swings open and closed without catching on anything and operates smoothly.

I also suggest working with the side glass installed in the door and in the *up* position.
To keep the glass from hanging up on the rubber seal and making moving the door around difficult, simply lube the rubber with a light coating of vegetable oil that you can wash off the rubber and glass later.
You want to continually check the postion of the glass against it's rubber seal and make certain that it seats into the proper location all around.
Once you think you have it correct, be certain to cycle the window up and down a couple of times to be certain that the glass re-seats into the rubber properly each time.
If it is necessary to make *extreme* adjustments to the door, you may need to lower the window glass, adjust the door and then adjust the window tracks to align the glass as required.
In order to easily reach the hinges on the cowl side, you will need to jack up the car and remove the front wheel and fender liner on each side.
To keep from inducing any amount of flex or twist in the chasis so that you get the doors aligned best, I strongly suggest that you place jackstands under the front crossmember and keep the car evenly supported while the front wheels are off. If you find that the angle of the car on the jackstands makes it difficult for you to work with the doors, then raise the rear of the car and use a 2nd set of jackstands to level the chassis.

(I told you this was a PITA )

Actually, none of this is terribly difficult work, (except reaching inside those doors to get at the hinge bolts if you have big hands), It's really just tedious and requires a bit of trial and error..check and recheck, until you get the best fit.
It's also worth mentioning again that the Fiero is a 1980s GM car and you will NEVER get the door and panel fit quality of more modern cars, plus the flexible nature of the Fiero panels makes it even more difficult, that said though, it is possible to get the doors aligned evenly and nicely with some effort.

I know some of this is probably as clear as mud and I didn't explain it well, but I hope it helps, and as always I'm happy to explain further and help any way I can...

[This message has been edited by randye (edited 10-24-2011).]

Hey! I've seen that car before... but I just can't put my finger on where it was...

quote Originally posted by Bloozberry: Hey! I've seen that car before... but I just can't put my finger on where it was...

Yep..I swiped the photos for this exercise from *somebody* because they were just THAT good

[This message has been edited by randye (edited 10-24-2011).]

Hey great post. I think it should be made into a topic/tutorial itself as I'm not the only one with door issues. Great to know what I'm dealing with now. Thanks again.

quote Originally posted by randye: I know some of this is probably as clear as mud and I didn't explain it well

On the contrary, nicely done.

-fh

Hey, I recently replaced my bushings/pins in my 88GT door and when i was done i noticed that the alignment was off a bit. But thanks to this step by step, i think ill be able to cure it. Thanks for a great writeup!