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TIL a retired adjuster in Cleveland told me my door gap numbers were backwards and it bugged me for 3 days
I ran into him at a parts counter and he asked how I set my door gaps on a 12 stop job. I said 3/8 at the top and 1/4 at the bottom, like I have done for close to 15 jobs. He just shook his head and said the top gap should never be the wide one, because the door flexes as the car settles and the top closes up on you. It bugged me, so I went back and measured two cars I finished last month and both had the top gap tighter than I left it. He also said he learned that from 4 callbacks on one job, not from a manual. Now I am second guessing my setup sheet. Any of you run top gap wider and still get clean closing after a few hundred runs?
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derek_park2d ago
That adjuster is onto something. I ran top wide for years until a guy showed me his gap log on a fleet of 15 cars, and every one of them had the top creep in by 1/16 or more after about 500 runs. The door sags on the hinge and the striker pulls it up, so the gap you set at the top never stays put. I switched to 5/16 top and 3/8 bottom and my callbacks dropped off a cliff. The catch is you have to set it with the car on its wheels and loaded like it sits on the road, not on the lift, or you're just chasing the same ghost.
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