Quote:
Originally Posted by darrell
what i meant was they never fitted right from the start. I have a 55 I've been told 55 and 6 were worse than the rest. quality control was a thing of the future.
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I have two '55 Fords and have had one '56 Ford hardtop in the past. None of the doors were right on them and I seriously doubt they were ever molested from the factory adjustment.
When you consider that the factory had a huge jig hanging from the factory rafters, probably weighing half a ton itself for the fitment and adjustment of the doors, you have to admit that this door design is pretty woeful. That jig setup was factory protocol, required ample training to operate and probably served as the final quality control of door fitment and proper adjustment.
If you look at the Ford shop manual, they actually show a photo in the "Bodies" section depicting someone heating the door framework with a torch and using a clamped-on bending tool to bend the door structure in case the door contour didn't match the doorjamb or align properly with the top of the car. That's not what I would call precision cutting/stamping of door shell components.
Not to mention the fact that the '55/56 body design was the worst overall through the '50's for major rust-through's (headlights, inner & outer rockers, rear quarters, lower front fenders, bottom of hood and trunk lid). Terrible body design and utterly lousy rust prevention technique, but we love 'em anyway, 'cause they're good looking cars and they have Y-BLOCKs!
Hey, they didn't want to produce cars that would last a lifetime. They wanted you to come back to the dealer in 10 years or less and buy a new Ford car.
BTW, a message to the original poster, I spent nearly all of 2017 performing major rust repair on my avatar shown here and immediately afterward, performed major door adjustments to finally get my driver and passenger side front doors to fit and close right. I posted on this site a detailed step-by-step list of procedures I used to complete these tasks and included photos. The door adjustment posting might help you.
Type "55 Ford door adjustment" in the search feature and scroll down to you find it. Posted in 2018