Thread: Discovery II Tail Door adjustment (saggy door)

Saggy Daggy Door
Our new 1999 Td5 D2 had about 8mm tail door left side sag. The latch parts on the door met the triangular dovetail and striker 5mm too low and pushing hard would force the parts together allowing us to close the door as the rubber dovetail lifted it about 4mm to (close to) its proper position it – thus no rain leaks. More importantly, the tail door was very stiff to close the last 3 inches due to biding somewhere. A few years as a sub contractor and VW Type II owner told me that a stiff door could be caused by miss-set hinges (set at subtly differing swing angles), fouling on seal rubber on either side, lack of lube or wear in hinge, sag due to racking etc. My Rave D2 repair manual section 76.28.19.99 on the tail door doesn’t seem to be of much help regarding the adjustment of doors and doesn’t tell us where the hidden adjusting bolts that hold the hinge to the door are (more later). Similarly the Hayne’s D2 manual only points to the six hinge-to-body screws for adjustment and suggests shims under them for racking adjustment. The door can (and in many cases should) be adjusted by the bolts holding the hinges to the door (not to the body).

Checking the stay:
I used circlip pliers to remove the circlip from the pivot on the body, pulled the washer and tested the door. The problem wasn’t in the stay. I removed the hole unit and cleaned old stiff grease up with WD40 and then inox, applied inox and grease (thought of using graphite powder then thought of rust, hope grease is indeed best)

Getting ready to adjust the door
Removed the spare tyre.
Then how to support the door? Stuff up, and a lot of expensive bits will be ripped out of the door, the door frame and car body structurally damaged etc. I found the bumper of my V8i Disco I (door closed, spare tyre on, 3” overlap, judiciously placed wheel choke to ensure no disasters when having my wife back the V8i up) when backed up behind the Disco II, with the 1” thick VW Type II Workshop Manual wedge under the end of the door provided a useful platform for the door end. With one hinge attached and the screws out of the other I found the door stayed firmly vertical and required no support but I wouldn’t do it on a windy day and nor would I lean on the door. Both cars have suspension and so sitting on bumpers can be used to make space for stuffing workshop manuals under doors or to subtly adjust door hinge settings. In the absence of a spare V8i, use your imagination..

Before loosening anything I used liquid paper to mark a reference point at the top and side of each hinge.

No torque settings for the 13mm screws securing doors hinges in any book I’ve look I still find baffling! So I used a torque wrench to test the settings before proceeding but the numbers where all over the place, probably from previous attempts to adjust the door. You could try it and might get a better result.

Shims are not the answer
The first thing I did was try the Haynes suggestion, making a 2mm aluminium shim (from the aluminium sheet in the protective packaging of the Nanocom) using endcutters and a 10mm in my el cheapo drillpress. I dabbed liquid paper on the tops of the hinge screws and quickly positioned a shim on the bolts to get my hole positions.

After fitting two of my you-beaut 5 minute aluminium door shims (burrs carefully removed) the left side sat just about 10mm higher, thus 2mm too high at the latch which I could have easily lived with. However, the door was now too far to the left and the latch mechanics and bumpers fouled badly enough to scrape and make closing difficult. I took one shim out and the bumpers still fouled. I searched on the off chance for a shim behind the top hinge, which was unsurprisingly not there. Obviously shims were not the right method and Haynes hadn’t tried their own advice (much as I have found them very useful for all my cars and bikes, this is not the first time they have seemingly applied a generic procedure to fit where the factory manual gives no direction in such “less essential” repairs). Shimming out the bottom hinge or anything at all was no go. So pulling in the top was necessary. If you’re reading this while not looking at the tail door you might be thinking. “Hey, just loosen the screws on the top hinge, lift the door end and tighten.” Doing that works only to lift the door end when it’s open and not much when closed only as this in/out adjustment at hinge-to-body side actually repositions the top pivot point, not the door’s relation to the pivot point. I tried it anyway to be sure I hadn’t missed something. I didn’t work.

I pulled out the shims and returned everything to its maladjusted state.

Previous maladjustment of the hinges:
So I had a stout (my own Tropical Stout with no-longer secret ingredients of CSR Dark for malt, and a shot of coffee and a tablespoon of ground liquorice root, btw).

And after staring at the door seal as my wife opened and closed the door about 40 times, I realized that the top door hinge was adjusted into the body much more than the bottom, evidenced by the increased width of the mark on the seal where the door made contact when closed. Moreover, the seal appeared to be contributing to the tightness from about 4” from closure. With the door fully open I felt where the pin side edge of the hinge lines up with the body contour at the bottom and compared this to the top. The bottom hinge sat neatly on the edge of the contour and the top was 7mm past it. Had someone adjusted it in 8mm in to lift the left side of the door?

I looked further and found two round 25mm near-flush black plastic caps on the door, left of the trim panel. I pryed one off (bamboo chopstick sharpened with knife/on bench grinder to shallow angle sharp edge) and lo and behold underneath was a 13mm high tensile bolt! Hurrah! The bolt had perfect body paint on it and so it seems no one had ever attempted to adjust the door hinge to door distance and that indeed, the previous mechanic/owner had ‘fixed’ the low left side by pushing the hinge into the body to the max. Unable to find a way to shorten the length from door to hinge pivot (it’s not in the manuals) they massively (5mm) shortened the length from body to hinge in order to get minor gain on the left side height and threw out the door to hinge length so that the seal binds at the top.

Returning body to hinge pivot distance to within adjustment spec:
I then took a stab in the dark regarding the top hinge adjustment and moved the hinge away from the body to the same point in relation to the contour as the bottom hinge (about 5-6mm outwards). I had my wife open and close the door heaps of times to verify a basically even meeting of the door with the seal that should seal against rain water.

Adjusting door to hinge pivot distance:
I used liquid paper to mark where the point where the hinge arm enters the frame of the door. When dry I marked the exact point with a pencil line.
I loosened the hinge arm bolt under the plastic cap and got no movement whatsoever! There must be a long hinge arm and another bolt, I thought (see the hinge picture in RoverParts pdf above), so I pulled back the top edge of the panel (remove 8mm bolts from under handle, single screw from handle, pull of handle trim with handle in open position, grim struggle with red panel studs, broke 2, in retrospect would make a sharpened 10mm wide stiff bamboo/plastic scraper with a 5mm half circle cut in the end to be slid directly under each stud brim). Began to peel the plastic sheet back then saw the bolt I wanted (about 6” to the right of the bolt under the plastic cap) and that it already had a slit cut for its access, taped over to prevent dust ingress. I pulled the tape back and a 13mm socket fit perfectly. Loosened both bolts and bingo was able to freely adjust door to pivot length for the top hinge. I found that 3mm shortening at the hinge side lifted the door left side when closed by 8mm. The process would be the same for the bottom hinge (but generally unnecessary).

Results
I got the latch and striker within about 1mm. I then loosened the two outside bolts on each hinge on the body side and jiggled on the door a little to try to even up any tensions that had built up between the hinges in all the previous maladjustments and their repair. Binding is now significantly reduced (it was shocking before all this). The bottom hinge shows faint signs of distortion and I suspect the pin or the shaft of on or both hinges may be bent from previous maladjustments (due to pins pivoting out of line). I’ll see how the door goes. May need a new bottom hinge one door but not for a while I hope. The seal has been over compressed at the top for a while and backing of the hinge (moving the door out from the body) at the top may give me the right position but result in leaks past the old seal. The seal is hollow type and thus appears more resistant to permanent compression/distortion (then the old foam rubber jobbies on 1970’s VW’s) and so my fingers are crossed. You have permission to laugh if my door now leaks.



What I think happened to my tail door (and may have happened to many Disco II doors:
Over 400,000km of plodding around Qld backroads carrying a full-tread Michelin, the two screws holding the top arm of the hinge in the door (taking say 50kg? of pulling strain by leverage) slowly let the hinge arm through and door to hinge pin length increases. Non-landy mechanic who can’t see another adjustment method loosens body side hinge bolts and adjusts the hinge further back into the body. Because the top is now tighter, no leaks ensue and the slight lift of the left side allows the doors to close okay, so everyone thinks all is rosy. This is repeated about every 70,00km. No reference marks were ever placed on the hinge or body (nor of the hinge arm going into the door) so no one sees that it isn’t the hinge body relationship that is changed with wear but actually the hinge door relationship (hopefully nothing else!) that is stretching. Mechanics go on adjusting hinge door relationship to take up the slack. As the top hinge of the door is increasingly shoved toward the body, the top seal starts to bind, the two hinges are no longer swinging in alignment and begin to bind, maybe even the door stay mechanism and other elements are minorly distorted or worn by the strain. Finally the top door hinge can be shoved no more into the body but the door is increasingly too low on the left and everything is binding everywhere. Sell the car ☺

So that’s what I did and many thanks to my wife for standing on the V8i rear bumper while I adjusted the door support and stood on the Td5 Disco II’s or V8i’s bumper to adjust the door height.



I did take some snaps and can load them up if people need them for reference.

For search purposes: Rear door latch hinge

What side of the door is the water leaking in from?
If it's from the left you may be able to tighten it on the catch so it closes tighter.

On reading your post I'd sugest a revisit of the adjutments.
Most doors drop over time as the hinges wear.
I think the top left is too low if I read what you did right.
When the door is shut is the gap the same on each side top and bottom?