Door gaps

[cobrabritt83]

Hi,
I'm trying to get the door gaps right before I send the body off to get painted. I have the trunk and floor area screwed down in place on the frame. I have the passenger door just taped in place with spacers place around the door and I don't have the cowl bar bolted down yet. I tried raising the front end to get the door gaps close, but I when I did I noticed the front end was way too high and didn't look right. I understand the gaps are not going to be perfect ands its not a show car, but I'm not sure how big of a gap is normal for these kits. I thought about adding fiberglass around the body where the door sits in the areas where the larger gaps are, but just wanted to see if anyone had these issues also. I did notice the driver side door fits a lot better then the passenger.

[CoyoteCobra]

I also noticed my driver door fits better. I've been fighting the striker/door alignment issues on my pass side a lot lately.

To set my doors in place I first installed the cowl bar with its braces to FW. Then I used painter tape on everything around the door area. I taped paint stir/sticks to the body to get a gap, placed the doors in place and marked them with a sharpie for drilling/tapping the "hinge"/curved-bar pieces. It came out Ok but I'm still getting some cranky stiker/latch alignment issues that will need to be adjusted.

[saltshaker]

You need to bolt the cowl bar in place. Get your doors to open and close and let the body shop worry about the gaps!
Jon

[DanEC]

The body does need to be firmly mounted before that work, and hopefully in such a way that it can be mounted back exactly as before if it needs to be removed for painting. I like 3/16” gaps for bare fiberglass but depending on thickness of the glass and the swing action of the hinges as the two panels swing past one another, it could need to be a little wider. If the glass is pretty thick, I’ve sanded the back edge of the inside of the door skin on the hinge side to a bevel to provide more clearance. I also radius all panel edges slightly so to provide a bit more clearance and to hold paint better. A bare fiberglass gap of 3/16” will end up as little as 1/8” once all primer and paint are applied which is actually pretty tight.

[Racerbill]

I had the same issues. I mounted the cowl bar first like the instructions said. I think that in retrospect I should have mocked everything up and then mounted the cowl bar. I had to remake the passenger side hinge and also sand the backside of the front of the doors to get clearance and have the door gaps correct.

[cobrabritt83]

Did anyone have an issue with the brackets being to short that go from the cowl bar to the firewall? I have the doors mounted to the cowl bar and the doors are sitting in place, but I noticed if I were to bolt down the cowl bar, the brackets that go from the cowl bar to the firewall are way to short.

[CoyoteCobra]

I did not run into this on mine. My kit was built around 2018.