Door to quarter panel alignment

[GoMangoBoys]

The battle to align the doors, fenders and hood is nearly won.
I think I am pretty much there with only needing a slight height adjustment on the hood, and to align the hood pins.  I do have one problem that I think will require a little duraglass to resolve.  I replaced the right rear quarter panel with the partial skin instead of the whole panel.  I thought the alignment to the door was good whe I replaced the panel, but I have since removed and reinstalled the door.  Now when I align the top of the door to the top of the quarter panel at the rear side window area, the body line in the middle of the car does not line up.  I am thinking that I can just use some duraglass on the quarter panel to reshape and move the body line up a bit.  Let me know if I am crazy.
Thanks.

[Cuda Cody]

Do you have 52 pounds of weight in the door?  The door will sag when you load it up with all the glass, window hardware and things so when you are doing body work and lining things up, make sure to put weight in the door.  The weight will drop the rear door where it meets the quarter panel about 1/8" to 3/8" depending on the hinges and where the weight is put.

[Cuda Cody]

How's the top of the door meet up with the quarter?

[Rich G.]

How is the gap on the bottom of the door along the rocker panel? That has to be right before you can line anything else up. I like to leave the factory door jam if I just replace the skin instead of the whole quarter. Always start at the back and work forward. Can't move the quarter. How is the top of the door to quarter?

[GoMangoBoys]

So the doors do not have weight of the guts in them.  This is good to know.  I did not think of that.  I assume that I should just plan on readjusting the alignment after the doors are back together.  In the mean time, this problem is still the same.  Right now my door is about a 16th lower that the top of the quarter, but the door is higher than the quarter in the middle.  This is why I think I need to add some filler to bring the body line in the center up some.

[anlauto]

I think if you measure the distance from the belt line to the mid-line on each panel, you'll see the quarter panel is wider. I'm with you on a little manipulation of the quarter 

[torredcuda]

If your top edges line up good and rocker to door gap is even then your body line may be off, weighting the door will not really change that. I would hammer and dolly the line up to get it as close as I could before duraglass or plastic filler.

[anlauto]

  Your Current line looks like it goes straight down (red) I think the factory quarter starts to curve up to meet the door (green)

This difference is always evident when installing longitudinal stripes on reproduction quarters

[soundcontrol]

Your Current line looks like it goes straight down (red) I think the factory quarter starts to curve up to meet the door (green)

This difference is always evident when installing longitudinal stripes on reproduction quarters

I had this exact problem with my Goodmark skins, when I changed to AMD skins they had the curve up in the body line so it matched up.
First picture is Goodmark, second is AMD.

[Cuda Cody]

You only get 1 chance to fix it right so now is the time to take a break and think it over really good.  Might be worth replacing the panel so the body lines are lined up correctly, or maybe it's best to use some body filler and change the line location.  Only you can decide what is best for your car.  IMO, if I was my car, I would rather fix it now with a new panel compared to building up body filler and possible having paint issues years from now.  But like I said, you could make either option work.

[soundcontrol]

My Goodmark skin had a bump in the body line right over the marker light also, I took it to a guy here that's been doing panel work for 40+ years on classic english cars, and he fixed it with a dolly and a hammer, I watched him do it, amazing work. He moved the body line up a bit. At the time I was not up to trying that myself, but now I would.
I ended up getting AMDs anyways because of other issues, hole for the gas cap was bad, the whole body line was not sharp etc. (and AMD had a sale!)
I wouldn't fix it with filler, think it can be done with some metalwork, and maybe a little bit of TIG welding.

[GoMangoBoys]

I wanted to follow up and let everyone know how this turned out for me.  I could not see doing something extreme like replacing the panel at this stage of the project.   I do not feel confident in my abuility to bump that corner upward with having such limited access to the back side of the pane.  I decided to go ahead and use duraglass to reshape the body line to make it line up with the body line in the door.  I hated this solution as it makes a very exposed corner made out of filler instead of metal.  The duraglass solution turned out very nice.  Shortly after I finished it, I had the revelation that I could have made a couple small cuts in the sheet metal to bend the panel right there and reweld it.  I used a wire wheel on the angle grinder to grind off all the duraglass.  As I thought out how to do the cut, bend, weld change, it occurred to me that I could just use weld in the same way that I had done the duraglass to build up and reshape the corner.  This is what I did.  The corner is now made out of weld instead of filler.  Some might not feel that this was very elegant, but I say go with your strengths.  The first picture is the finished duraglass solution.  Ignore the run in the primer.  The pictures after that are of the weld solution.  Please don't ridicule me too much.

[Shoooter]

Gomangoboys was your panel a good mark as well?

[RUNCHARGER]

I think you need to raise the center of the dip up a sliver. Have another look at it tomorrow. You needed weld/metal at that edge, better than plastic.

[DeathProofCuda]

I think you need to raise the center of the dip up a sliver. Have another look at it tomorrow. You needed weld/metal at that edge, better than plastic.

I'd probably never notice it if I wasn't looking for it, but I think Sheldon is right.  Still, I have to applaud the work.  Nice job!