Crew cab passenger door doesn't close all the way?

[ThaEdge]

I have a 96 C3500 CCLB. I have been searching the forums for a couple of days and have not found a suitable answer to my quandry.

Front passenger door doesn't close all the way. I have carefuly checked to ensure that the latch is closing all the way. With that out of the way looked at the condition of the latch, it apears to be fairly new, the nylon coating on the catches seems to be intact. The door in question is out about 1/4in at the back where the latch is in comparison to the back door. in addition the door seals dont make contact at the back of the door. The gap is excesive enough that water pours in when it rains and the wind noise if deafening at 65mph. it also "clunks" vissibly swinging closed and back out to where the latch cathes it. The door can be pushed in easly but seems to hit a hard stop right where it is fush with back door. All that being said can some one steer me in the right direction? I'm kinda old school where everthing had an adjustment but these doors don't seem to have one adjustment anywhere. One other observation is that the pin appears to be "angled out". I am a bit leary of just bending it back in as I am worried that it will affect the integrity of the sheet metal.

I have seen where people are bending the top of the door back in to fix minor issues but in my situation the reveal is even at the top and bottom and bending the top in will only fix the top and not the bottom.

Thank you!
Christian

 

[SUBURBAN5]

I recommend taking some pics so we can see what's touching and what all you got going on

 

[ThaEdge]

I recommend taking some pics so we can see what's touching and what all you got going on

OK after poking around a bit to take pics I noticed the nylon was a bit worn and so I pulled at with my fingernail and it peeled away. So that's an obvious issue. But could the latch realy have that much play?

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[SUBURBAN5]

I doubt your latch the issue. Mine broke off years ago and it still works normal. I think it's more of an insulator than a bushing lol

 

[SUBURBAN5]

Hows the body gaps? Fender to door vs door to rear door?

 

[Erik the Awful]

That door striker looks like it's seriously bent outwards.

How are your hinge pins? Usually that's the start of the trouble. If you can build a fixture to support the door, you can replace the bushings yourself, but buy a quality kit or you'll be redoing it soon. A body shop will likely charge about $150 to do it for you.

I replaced my hinge pins, and I think I replaced the latch, and I still had to jack up my door to bend it back up into place. It's already trying to sag again. There is no fix for that except to re-engineer the door with extra sheet metal.

 

[ThaEdge]

That door striker looks like it's seriously bent outwards.

How are your hinge pins? Usually that's the start of the trouble. If you can build a fixture to support the door, you can replace the bushings yourself, but buy a quality kit or you'll be redoing it soon. A body shop will likely charge about $150 to do it for you.

I replaced my hinge pins, and I think I replaced the latch, and I still had to jack up my door to bend it back up into place. It's already trying to sag again. There is no fix for that except to re-engineer the door with extra sheet metal.

Hinge pins and bushing appear to be good. Very little play but the "thrust" bushing that separates the hinge parts seems a little worn so I used a peice of HDPE plastic as a washer to separate the peices. This raised the door about 0.040". That didn't seem to make any difference other than the door was a little easier to open, although it wasn't defficult to begin with.

Another observation is at the front and back of the door it is slightly further out at the top. The difference is not really noticeable to the naked eye about ¹/16" difference.

Gaps look really good. That was the first thing I looked at when diagnosing the problem.

The sriker definitely looks bent out to me in comparison to the other doors. I don't know how to fix that without getting into some welding and serious body work to straighten and reinforce it. So are there any answers to that? It seems like the most obvious solution is to start with fixing that. And go from there. I did have a 99 burb that had this issue and I put a pipe on it, bent it over and called it a day. But it was a beater that I picked up for $1500 nearly 10 years ago so I wasn't too worried about it. This truck is nearly perfect besides a couple little annoyances like this.

The next question would be is there a way to fix the top of the door being out more than the bottom without bending the window frame?

 

[ThaEdge]

Update: so after extensive research everyone said "bend it". Scarry sentiment for a guy who has a background in structural fabrication... Any way...

So I figured I would start with the strike pin. I used a large adjustable wrench and bent it back to where it apeard it should be, simple enough. Door sounded much better but still wasn't right.

Next I tackled the top hinge. This was going to be a very minor adjustment but it need to go in (towards the driver door). I pulled away about 8 inches of the window seal to make room for a ratchet strap to loop around the window frame as low as I could get it without being on the mirror mount. l then ran it through the cab over the driver seat and attached the other end to the frame. I ratcheted it tight with the door in question slightly open. Then I went and started pulling the door open by hand untill it lined up (again I didn't need much) with the back door and the fender.

Then I was quite surprised to see that the door lined up quite nicely with the panels around it but still had a quite large gap at the corner of the windshield. With the window down I put a knee on the door and pulled that corner of the window frame until the gap was the same as the rest of doors. Also in my case this fixed the window not closing smoothly.

All of this was a bit gut wrenching for me... But there is not a better solution unless you want to realy get into some serious cutting and fabrication. So in my case if I'm gonna do all that I might as well see how this works first. If it works, great! If not, I'll do the fab work and it will be better than new when I'm done.

Side note: I beleive the damage was caused by a pop-a-lock type service that used an air bag to separate the top of the door from the body for access to unlock the truck.

 

[SUBURBAN5]

Awesome at least you found it

 

[Erik the Awful]

The worst you can do is dork it up to where a body shop has to fix it, and it sounds like it's nearly there already. None of us are going to judge you poorly for trying to fix it yourself, nor for using the wallet-wrench.