I am in the process of refitting the doors back on my 87gt after replacing the hinge pins and bushes and making some mods

and basically I am having a ***** of a time lining up the door - I have read an archive post from randye and explains very good theory to lining up the doors which I am taking on board.

here https://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...130314-2-119449.html

my main question is can I get to the hinges which are bolted on to the car side by just removing the inner wheel well ? - without removing the fender

the bottom hinge hasn't got a roller bearing in yet - as I have rodneys repair kit to hand for when the door has been aligned so that wont get in the way of the bolt that's in plus the other bolt in the bottom hinge is accessible from inside the footwell

all opinions welcomed.

jon

Yep you can get to the bolts thru the fender liner. I just removed enough of the screws to where I could get my hand in there. I didn't have to remove the whole liner. When I bought my car the passanger door hung down and was hard to close. I thought the bushings were shot but once I started taking everything apart I realized that one of the bolts were missing. I bought a whole set of used hinges with bolts and only use one bolt.

I did the same thing except I had taken off the outer door skin before remounting the door. Really not that difficult to do. Much easier to get at the hinge bolts too.

thank you- this will help me no end

jon

Yeah, that's what I would recommend doing too... removing the door panel and trying to fit the door that way.

In the future though, I recommend drilling pilot holes through the hinge and the outer door frame on the car. I did this with a standard bit size (that matches a nail perfectly, and I was able to align them without any effort at all. The interesting thing for me was that after I removed the hinges and replaced the pins... I re-installed the door using the nail through the hole to align, and the door aligned more perfectly than I can ever remember it being. This happened of course because I kept hte original door alignment, and I replaced the pins / bushings. Not totally helpful now, I know... but in the future (or maybe for the next door). To fix up the hole afterwards (not real necessary), you can just put a little bit of black RTV sealant in it.

Method I use: no measuring or marking required. very quick and easy

remove or loosen up fender so you can get to hinge mounting holes.

put door in place and loosely put in a bolt on each hinge

completely shut door

tighten up all hinge bolts.

re-attach fender