Series 2A door fit

[ryzakbyron]

Hi
Can someone give me some advice how to get the front and passenger doors on my 2A to shut properly. They close but with any big bump or if I lean on the door they open up and I have to slam them shut again.
When I look at the door alignment it seems that the doors sag a bit. That is I have to slightly lift and push to shut the door.
How do I adjust things so they are flush and the latch stays tight?

Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers
Ganesh

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Ganesh

You will probably find that the little brass balls in the hinges have worn* allowing the door to drop in its alignment. Replacement balls, (or better still hinge kits containing the ball, pin, spring, lock tab and nut,) are available from the usual suspects in the U.K. Well worth the money.

When fitting the kits, the gal capping of the door bottom should line up with the gal capping on the tub and the vertical gap between the door and tub should be parallel. Do this after you have fitted the new kit by adjusting the position of the hinges where they are bolted to the firewall.

Once you have aligned the door to the tub, you can then adjust the striking plate to centre over the tongue of the door catch. If you may need to add or subtract packing from behind the striking plate to get a correct and secure fit.

If you still have trouble, it may be a case that you need to replace the door latch mechanism because of wear in the tongue.

Your other option is to retrofit the entire system to the SIII "anti-burst" system.

Diana

* New balls look like a regular sphere with a hole. A worn ball looks like someone has cut through the sphere and moved the top and bottom hemispheres in opposite directions.

[UNDEROVER]

Ganesh,

I had the same problem of the doors "popping" open whilst driving, and I also figured that the worn tongue was part of the cause.
I ended up packing the striker plate out as much as possible, without interfering with how the door closed, and that seemed to help. Short of attempting to rid the tongue of the tapered end by way of machining or trying to find a "good" one second hand there's not much else I can tell you.
Good luck.