door gap adjustment procedure

[stroker70]

Can anyone tell me how to adjust the door gaps on a 53? My rear doors are tight at the rear edge and the front doors have too wide a gap at the front edge where they meet the fenders. It appears like the only way to change these gaps would be to bend the hinges if they are made of malleable iron.

[ben-tex]

There are several pages in the shop manual on door adjustments.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Ben is correct on the Shop Manual thing.  The adjustment information in the 1951 Shop Manual is applicable for 1952-55 as well; the same doors and same body side stamping is used.

Fit of the doors, hood and trunk were common problem areas on most cars built back then.

[Jim B PEI]

So adjustments are counter-intuitive. For example, you might be tempted to loosen the door-side bolts and shove the door "in" a fraction, because this makes the best sense if you are only considering the position of the door when it is closed. This MIGHT NOT be the adjustment that needs to be done, and instead it might be the pillar side bolts that need adjusting, for example. Like backing up a trailer, or worse yet, a tandem trailer. You really need the manual to get it right and not die of frustration.

[stroker70]

I don't have the manual in front of me,but I do have one, so I wont ask a question before researching the book first. If memory serves me (It rarely does) the manual does not offer a method to move the doors the direction I need. Up,down,in, out adjustments are all obvious to me. Not tooting my own horn but, I'm really good at aligning body panels and how to do it, however, I see no way on this car other than bending the hinges to adjust the doors front to rear gaps. I could shim the hinges to tighten up the gaps on rear edge of the doors but I need to do the opposite. I was hoping someone here had tackled this problem before. I guess I will be forced to take off one hinge at a time, put it in a vice and smack it with a hammer to get the movement I need. I have done it on my Hudson Hornet and it worked good. Its just a real pain trying to remove the attachment hardware.

[joefrazer]

A common problem with Kaisers when they were newer (because there was more of them) was collision damage causing the center post to get out of plumb. If, for example the car was hit in the front door at a glancing blow, it would force the door itself back into the center post and push it back. This would give you the scenario that you're describing, a gapped front door and a tight rear one.

Are your gaps around the door tops in line with the roof? My guess will be that the front door is a bit tighter than the rear at it highest point.

[mbflemingkf]

Maybe this would help?  Read the description.  If you buy it, tell us what you think of it or send me a photocopy (LOL).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220549059932&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT

[stroker70]

If you click on my STROKER70 and check page3 of my previous posts you will see the right side of my car. The tight rear door gap and the wide front door gap are fairly visible. I'm not sure about how the top of the doors line up.The driver side is the same as the passenger as far as door gap spacing so any collision damage would have had to affect both sides. Both doors open and close with ease and I don't hear any wind noise from them.