Notes on the Refitting of the Wood Frame and Doors
by Alan Alderwick

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.

REPLACING OLD DOOR HINGES WITH NEW
 by Bill Beddows (1982 4/4)

At some point in time the factory changed the hinges to a "thicker" version. The causes doors of a car originally fitted with the old hinges to foul on the latch plate when the new hinges are fitted. Sadly, the Factory has confirmed that only the new hinges are available.

The difference is in the bend round the pin which gives a larger gap between the plates in the closed position. With the doors closed if the gap between the plates is about 1 mm you have old hinges, about 3 mm is new hinges. I had 1mm machined off the back of the plates on both sides 35mm back from the outside edge. In hindsight 33mm would have been enough but you have to peer very closely to see the step.This solved the problem in my case but if neccessary the latch plate position can be adjusted by removing the lining behind the door. The latch plate usually has washers behind it which can be removed as required. 

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