Door and fender alignment questions

[dave73]

My door alignment has been out of whack since I bought my Challenger about 5 years ago. There were always bigger tasks to tackle but finally getting around to this. I've read through a bunch of threads and have questions on how to beat tackle this.

Driver side door:
- currently aligning to the quarter via the striker. When the door is opened, it hangs about an inch lower than it should. The door should be aligned without the striker, then striker installed, right?
- I've pulled up on the door when open to see if the hinges are worn and the whole car moves. Is there another test to determine if my hinges are the problem and need to be rebuilt?
- The bottom of the door is pushed in, while too seems pretty well aligned. Where do I start to get this resolved

Passenger side door
- Rear bottom is pushed in, needs to be pulled out to align with quarter.

In general, how should I attack the above? Should I pull the fenders and doors off, align the doors then put the fenders on and align?

[BFM_Cuda]

Yeah, you shouldn't have to lift up on the door to engage the striker post.

Its pretty easy to tell if you have a worn hinge, it would have shown up when you lifted on the door. I would guess that one to the hinges has moved, either the top hinge has slipped back or the lower hinge has moved forward. Look at the hinges and see if you can see signs of movement. I would also try to tighten the hinge bolts to see if any are loose.

To realign it, I would remove the striker pin and gently close the door as far as you can. By looking at the gaps at the fender and quarter panel , you should be able to tell which hinge needs to be moved, and it may be both of them.

Do the in/out panel alignment after you do the forward/back adjustment.

Good luck, it can be frustrating work to do door alignments, but keep working at it and you will get it sorted out.

Darin

[JS29]

@dave73 I will give you my prescriptive on how i do it. From the back of the door, open about a quarter of the way, pick up and down on the door. No play, hinges are good, I find if its hi or low on the body line of the quarter, evenness on the rocker. the door bolts will give you your in and out, but can give you a small amount of up and down. the bolts on the body give you hi and low, and a small amount of up and down. for your drop, I would loosen the bottom body bolts(one you have to access from behind) loosen up the upper hing, all but one bolt the one at the top. just crack that one to act as a pivot. pull it up and tighten up an upper and lower bolt and check. it usually takes a few times, to go down revers the order. In and out same theory. to bring the bottom out loosen all the bottom bolts, the top bolts all but one, crack that lat one and twist. go a little, check it and if need be repeat. yuo can remove the striker and remember if the doors are gutted you need to add weight to it. I think around 50 pounds, you can use a Chain or something similar        

[7E-Bodies]

Interesting technique. Saving this.