Quote:
Originally Posted by 40cpe
When I got my '55 Victoria it had a black, soft pad under the striker plates. They were gooey enough to allow the striker to move. I found some metallic looking pads with a rough finish on ebay. They seem to be holding now.
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The factory used a shim or shims cutout from asbestos-fibre cement sheets or slabs. They manufactured a few different thicknesses to be mixed as needed depending upon whether the factory had a particular door adjusted closer to the hinge end, or closer to the latch end. The closer to the hinge end required more or thicker shims or a combination thereof. If a door was closer to the latch end, fewer shims were needed. Apparently, as long as a door was installed such that none of the edges would hit front or rear fenders, roof gutter or rocker panel, and the contour ended up matching mating surfaces, it was considered good enough to send to market. However, since none were perfectly uniform in installation, they needed differing shim thicknesses. Still, it only takes a couple minutes for a guy to figure out the number and thicknesses of shims he needed to get the striker plate at the desired position.
Last I looked, many of the repro parts suppliers sell these shims for '55/56 Ford cars, but the new ones are probably made of a different material.