Spider door variations?

[Dave Bassett]

Does anyone know if there were changes in the Spider door dimensions form year to year? The reason I ask is that the striker plates have been hitting the door jambs. The doors were low and I raised them so that the gaps are even and the problem seems worse. One door would not close. Looking at the lock mechanism, it looks like someone tried to make it protrude less ab removing the two lower bolts and reinstalled them from within the door, basically shimming the lock mechanism forward. It was being held to the door with one bolt. When I loosened that bolt a bit, allowing the lock mechanism to be pushed even further forward, the door was able to be partially closed. I think the doors may have been switched by some previous owner and were lowered to allow the doors to sort of close. Anyway, I'm wondering if earlier doors are a different dimension from the hinge pin to rearward edge of the lock mechanism. My car is a 1972.

 

[kmead]

Pretty unlikely that there were changes to the doors dimensionally in the course of production. The last year may have an anti intrusion beam in it

The hinges are known to wear and may be part of your problem.

The other possibility is the door opening. The opening can close up if there is rust and or poor past repairs.

 

[dnudelman]

Or collision repair . I'm with the hinge repair theory. In Daniel's rusted spider thread he did a nice write up of hinge rebuilding. While I'm not familiar with 850 spider doors,I am with 124 spider door cracks and sags. Maybe similar isssue? My 850 coupe has that issue and I haven't gotten around to dealing with it yet.

 

[Dave Bassett]

Here are some pictures. People like pictures.

 

[Dave Bassett]

There is no evidence of structural rust, only a couple of patches of surface rust and the door gaps are very even.

 

[Jeff Stich]

I'd vote for worn-out hinges. Barring any floorpan/rocker structural/rust issues, that's really the only way for the strikers to hit the door jambs like that if the doors & strikers are mounted normally. Once the door is latched closed, the door gaps are going to appear fairly normal due to basic triangulation (hinge + hinge + latch). The top hinge usually wears out first, causing the door to tilt downward a bit to the rear, sometimes just enough to have the striker scrape the door jamb.

When you open the door & pull upwards on the rear end of the door, is there play in the hinges (up & down) or are they tight?

 

[Dave Bassett]

Jeff, thanks for your tips. The passenger door was low but lower in the rear. Aligning the door made it worse and I had to loosen the lock mechanism to close it. The driver door is a bit low in front and elevated at the rear. Neither seem to have much play and the bushings have been replaced at some point in the last twenty years (15 thousand miles). I may consult someone who deals with these kinds of things regularly.