These notes are gleaned from response to a question received
by the Webmaster and passed onto the eMog Morgan discussion group. The
question received was as follows;
| I am in the process of
renovating a Morgan. I had to replace the firewall and then found
the wooden frame at the firewall crossmember was completely rotten
from hinge posts right up to the firewall.
I copied the frame pieces and thought I did a good solid job but now doors do not fit properly. Is there anything that I could have I done wrong? What do I do to get these doors to fit like they should?" |
Some of this advice may appear to be "closing the door after the horse has bolted", but it may be useful to anyone who is about to embark on dash/scuttle replacement.
1. Before I remove any tired and rotten timber I always diagonally brace the frame from as many points as I can. Obviously brace from places where you know that you are definitely going to leave good timber behind and place the braces carefully so that you do not denying yourself access to the trouble spots. This gives you a far better chance of all new pieces going back in the correct place.
2. It is very important that you make accurate card or thin ply templates of the existing door aperture. Take heed that you only have to be a millimeter or so out when you start replacing parts for the problems to compound themselves as you continue to add new parts.
These basics dealt with, let's try to deal with the problem your poorly fitting doors. I would suspect that the bottom rail of the door is either jamming against the rocker, or the door is flying high leaving you with a massive gap up the lock pillar ( or elbow rail as the factory call it). If my suspicion is correct I would suggest the following :-
3. Leave the hinges firmly bolted to the door.
4. Remove all bolts and screws from the new hinge pillar.
5. Cut two 8 mm. thick plywood spacers (about 50mm. x 50mm ).
6. Peel back the trim to allow access to the wooden rocker.
7. Place or temporarily pin the plywood spacers in place on top of the rockers.
8. Now close the hinges, get inside the car and offer the door up to the aperture. As far as you can, slide the hinges into their rebates on the hinge pillar. Look carefully to see whether the top or bottom hinge closes onto the bottom of the rebate first. If there is a gap at the top or bottom between the hinge and the hinge pillar then this is where you have to pack / shim to get the door to sit right.
I usually use brass or stainless shims but you can use pretty well anything that will not compress on tightening of the hinges. If you have a problem with the doors fitting in a vertical plane then this a"whole new ball game!" as you say across the ocean and will require different solutions.