door alighnment problem on my 41 willys

I'm having a problem with the doors alighning properly. They close and latch but there is a small gap where the door actually meets the body "when closed" I think when the floor was cut out to be mounted to a tube frame the inside body sort of relaxed a bit and is sagging in this problem area. I have posted a similar question a while ago but I do believe I may have figured out why and how this problem arose...I know that willys were a bit ill fitting to begin with but this is more than just slop!! How on god's green earth would I fix this? unmount the body, cut it ,re jig then re weld when it all fits good? any ideas would be great. I know that pics would be helpful but time prohibits me from this right at the moment Thank"s

A buddy of mine had a bag job done on a 49 ford, the guys that did the job hacked the car up right down the midde, took the heart of the structure out and messed it up good. The body sagged and did wierd stuff. The doors would not close at all, you had to really wiggle the door up and down to get it close a little. Had to make relief cuts in the floor and lift the rear of the body and reweld. Then shimmed the rear body mounts. On your car this could have happed since the body had been chopped up for a different chassis. Also, is the body on a regular Willy's chassis now? If so, is it shimmed correctly? On my 31 Ford "A" the doors don't fit that well but they close and line up somewhat. Pics would help to help diagnose a fix. Oh yeah, Willy's kick ass!

Hope this helps.

Keith...



Keith...

have to see it there many ways out of it some not bad and some medieval .some time you can shim up or down the cowl need photos

The body is actually sitting on a custom frame , I don't know much about it though. I sorta inherited this project when my father in law passed. There isn't anyone to ask about it. thank's for the info.

How about posting a couple pictures.

the Willys only has about 1/2 inch lip all around the door and it was never a good fit. Most of us just put some "rubber dots" in the body for the door to ride against ans then use "windlace" piping for the seal on the inside.

Windlace is P shaped molding/seal material that is either nailed if wood is available or contact cemented in. It fell out of favor in the 60 I think.

I nearly cut the door in half sectioning a piece out of it to make it fit. I also cut the posts off and re-glassed them back together so the top of the door fit properly. I just saw a nice steel car and his doors fit much worse than mine did before I fixed them.

Even my hood fits better than his.

You've already hit the nail on the head in your opening comments.........Willys bodies did not have very good tolerances when they were even new. After 70 years of people playing with one the fit becomes even worse in many cases.

You can either tweak the doors and jams to get a reasonable fit, or if you want them much better you are probably going to be cutting and adding or removing metal to get them perfect. The ones you see where the doors fit great are that way because someone went to the trouble of making them so, or the body is a fiberglass replica. :):)

Don

don's got it right. metal bodies and doors don't fit like other cars. never did. if you aren't going down the road listening to a howling roar then its not a willys :LOL:. it does no good to have a radio, you can't hear it; don't need heater cause more cold air comes in than any aftermarket heater can handle, and you don't need air cond. as you have plenty of air. jk. make sure you don't get things too close as scuffing will occur. have fun.