one down one to go

[wingski]

Well, hi there. I’ve got one door aligned and one to go. The passenger’s door on my 1929 cabriolet now looks the way it should. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough to satisfy me.

This is going to be a long drawn-out description of what I did with enough pictures so I think everyone will be able to do what I’m doing if they want to.

First, as you can see, I had at least a 3/4” gap at the bottom back edge of both doors. It looked like crap and bugged me every time I looked at the car. So, I did something about it. Here goes:

1) After taking off all the hardware, I removed the door panel by using a wide hunting knife and twisting that knife to lift the panel away from the door. Those nails are so small that almost all of them pulled through the panel and stayed in the wood. I used a pair of vice-grips to get all the nails out. Everything removed went into a miracle whip jar that had a lid so I didn’t have to worry about tipping it over and loosing any nails. Screwing that lid on and off was no fun, but I knocked that jar over at least twice while working on the door so it was worth it.

2) I bought 15 feet of 1/16” braided cable and three of the little 1/16” connectors. It cost me $5.82 at Home Depot. I was going to buy the plastic coated cable and probably should have because that would have eliminated the chance of fraying cable. I didn’t because it was more expensive and I wanted the cable to be as thin as possible to fit under that door panel. If I ever do this again on another car, I’ll definitely get coated cable.

3) I removed the wood screws from the back lower corner of the diagonal metal brace and let it hang. Next, I drilled out the screw hole closest to the door corner and inserted a small piece of metal tubing. That tubing keeps the cable from cutting into the wood when the cable is tightened. I ran the cable through the tubing and up behind the lower wood panel. I pulled the cable through until I had enough to make a double strand going up to that beveled wood screw that was at the top of the wood paneling on the front side of the door. After loosening that wood screw, looping the cable around it, I tightened it again to hold the cable in place.

4) Now I had a loop of cable with two ends overlapping right above the top lip of the lower wood paneling. I used one of the connectors to join those two ends, but I looped the ends through the connector before I tightened it down. I didn’t want the ends of the cable pulling out of the connector when tightened.

5) I used a long finishing nail to put between the cables and started twisting. I had pounded about two inches of the pointed end of the nail flat with a hammer so it would fit better under the metal brace when I screwed the brace back on. I started twisting until that back corner of the door was pulled back into alignment. I’d twist and tighten and then lock the nail in position against the lower wood panel and let the door sit for a few hours.

6) When the door shut and looked good, carefully shutting that door with that loose brace hanging down, I drilled new holes for the wood screws and re-attached the brace. The flattened end of the nail fits tightly under the brace when it is screwed back down. I noticed that the 1/16” cable had frayed where I twisted it and wonder if maybe I should have used 1/8” cable. However, I didn’t want anything keeping that door panel from fitting correctly. I think that 1/8” cable would be OK,
but who knows?

This whole job wasn’t that hard, but it took time and patience. I left the adjusting cable in the door in case I have to do more adjusting in the future. I’ll let you decide if it was worth all the work after looking at the pictures.

Mike

[burner31]

Wow, lot of wood in them doors.
My '31 has no wood

[canadian]

totally looks acceptable to me , nice job

[Ray in La Mesa]

Great to see your method & results, My 68B has more steel in the doors and fit really well.Noticed your outside door handles, most factory photos show them turned the other way,tail pointing up, but also have seen a very very few showing them pointing down like yours. I like them pointing up but that's personal preference. Swapping them side to side would turn them over.

[1931 flamingo]

Looking Good. Hopefully the wood doesn't have a "memory".
Paul in CT

[ronn]

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nice job! finish looks fine by me.

[wingski]

Thanks, Ray,

Don’t those door handles snag clothing when they’re pointed up? I would swear that all the A’s that I had as kid had handles that pulled up instead of down to open the doors. Besides that, wouldn’t the door lever be in the way of the built-in grab handle on the door moulding? That was a long time ago, so maybe I’m wrong.

I think it’s weird that the driver’s side door doesn’t have an outside lock. It has the little lever to lock the door, but the driver has to slide across the seat, exit the car via the passenger door, and use the key to lock up the car.

You know when I think about it, in movies the driver locks the driver’s door from the inside, slides across and locks the outside passenger door. My god, do you realize how much front seat wear was caused by this?

When I first got the car, the little lock lever was pointed up. Every time I sat in the car, my shoulder would brush that lever and lock it. By turning the lever so it faced down, I eliminated that problem.

Mike

[waxhead]

Nice job, thanks for posting how you rectified this problem.

[JDupuis]

Looks great Mike.! Jeff

[TZBrown]

Thanks for sharing your procedure to fix the gap. You never know when it may be needed by someone else

There certainly is a lot of wood in there.
I can see how time would cause things to change shape

[Jim M]

Wow! I have a 29 Roadster with the exact same problem. Can't wait to check it out in the AM. Believe it or not I can't remember what the inside of the door looks like but I DO know the outside looks exactly like yours. Have enough on my hands right now but this is going into my saved file for future reference. Thanks sooo much for sharing. All these little tips make the going a lot smoother when you get to it!!

[Russ/40]

Great result, nice job. I too am amazed to see all that wood in those doors.

[Ray in La Mesa]

Mike, Im was speaking about the outside door handles. Inside lock on the drivers door promoted safety so you don't get out into traffic. Would wear out the seat tho.

[wingski]

Hey guys,

I’m a retired technical writer and man does it feel good to write about something as important as door alignment on a model A. That thread about how to do it, what it takes to do it, and photos of it being done made me remember how important those jobs I had were.

I know I saved fingers, hands, and maybe lives. That makes me feel awfully good.

Thanks for letting me share,

Mike

[Don Turley]

Originally Posted by Ray in La Mesa

Noticed your outside door handles, most factory photos show them turned the other way,tail pointing up, but also have seen a very very few showing them pointing down like yours. I like them pointing up but that's personal preference. Swapping them side to side would turn them over.

The photo that I see in Mike's original post shows the outside door handle with the tail of the handle pointed up. The way that Ford installed them is with the tail of the handle pointed DOWN. Ray, Go back and look at some factory photos again. I think your observation is incorrect. "The Ford Model A as Henry Built It" has many examples showing the tail of the scroll outside handles with the tail end pointed down.

The only factory photo that I've ever seen with the tail end of the handle pointed UP, is the photo of the Early 1928 Prototype Fordor that has the celluloid visor and cowl vent.

[Curtis in MA]

Is the tail the end pointing to the front of the car or the back?

[Don Turley]

Originally Posted by Curtis in MA

Is the tail the end pointing to the front of the car or the back?

The tail end of the handle points down and away from the edge of the door opening.
In the case of a car with two doors, that would be towards the front of the car.

[Curtis in MA]

Thanks.

[wingski]

I’m surprised that no one said anything about the carpet on the garage floor.

Now, concerning the door handles. I think they look more practical with the end pointing up. At least when you grab for one of those handles, your fingers are not going to slip off the end. It’s an easy switch-over, so maybe I’ll do it in the future just to see what they look like, and how they feel.

Right now, I have other things to do on that A that are way more important. That old seven tooth steering box is one of them, and apparently from what a few of you have said, I’m going to have steering wobble due to the way that front wish-bone is supported in the rear.

Now that you have seen how much wood there is in the doors try to imagine how much wood there is in the rest of the car. It’s a lot, and Ford replaced a lot of that wood with metal almost immediately after this car was made. The Briggs body number on my cabriolet is 1949393. I’m surprised it’s not 0000008 or something like that.

Almost everything I touch on this car turns into a learning process, but I’m sure not bored. I’m just going balder each day from scratching my head, wondering what’s next, and wondering how much wood there is in a tudor. I know there sure wasn’t as much wood in the model A coupes I owned 60 years ago.

Mike

[JDupuis]

Mike, we know why there's carpet on the garage floor.
You're a clean freak! Hell, I've got central vac in my shop! I don't use it much, but I've got it !!! . Jeff