Door fit - again

[PeterH]

What was the conclusion about poor door alignment on a Spitfire ?   Was it that modern floor pressings weren't wide enough or was the problem with the sill?  I'm talking about the door bottom corner not aligning with the 'B' post.

[Josef]

I’d say it’s more the lack of sufficient effort when fitting the panels (or rather, assuming they ‘just fit’j. I did both sides of my Spit, replaced floor, sills, a-post, b-post bottom, heelboard and heelboard box section, rear wing. The offside all lined up pretty easily, the near side took a lot of effort to get the door sitting nicely in the bodywork. Sills and wings were BMH except for the near side sill which was Rover NOS. I suspect I was a few mm out with the rear edge of the floor / heelboard (too far inboard) and that is what knocked on to the outer panel fit. 

[Badwolf]

In my case, I suspect that a mixture of panel fit and lack of bracing to be the culprits. Unfortunately for me, there was little enough original panel left to check against, measure or take any sort of pattern from. In my ignorance of 30 years (plus) ago, I just assumed that you buy a replacement panel and it fits....like it doesn't!! There was no forum, yootoob, local meeting that I knew about, no internet. You took things on trust. It's a Spitfire wing/sill/floor pan...it will fit. Then, it doesn't line up. What have I done wrong? Taken something on trust..sad isn't it?

[Unkel Kunkel]

I

3 hours ago, Badwolf said:

In my case, I suspect that a mixture of panel fit and lack of bracing to be the culprits. Unfortunately for me, there was little enough original panel left to check against, measure or take any sort of pattern from. In my ignorance of 30 years (plus) ago, I just assumed that you buy a replacement panel and it fits....like it doesn't!! There was no forum, yootoob, local meeting that I knew about, no internet. You took things on trust. It's a Spitfire wing/sill/floor pan...it will fit. Then, it doesn't line up. What have I done wrong? Taken something on trust..sad isn't it?

I can echo exactly  this - and also Josef’s comments.

My car had been previously re-silled which I think certainly added to my problems.

I also assumed that parts just “fitted”.

Very obviously they didn't - so obviously I must have cocked it up.

To get around the door “Step- Out “ issue I  nervously decided to widen the new sill.

This was beyond  frontier land for my metal-working experience and skill and the only direction signs all seemed to say   “ This way to Bodge Land”.

Oh well..

So after it was fitted, I cut along the top edge and pulled it out:

so that it was inline with the lower door edge and then inserted metal.

Wider towards the rear as per diag.

Then joggled and plug welded, to fill the gap:

 

 

The other relevant thing is the relationship of sills and floor depths:  

 

 

Well It seemed to work, anyway.

Welcome to Bodgeland!

 

[Badwolf]

That does actually appear to be the accepted method of action to solve the problem for those brave enough to attempt it, and who have the skills, which I don't, and you can't use structural bonding on sills sadly!!

[Josef]

5 hours ago, Unkel Kunkel said:

 

So after it was fitted, I cut along the top edge and pulled it out:

I had to do something similar on my near side sill (before finally fitting it to the car in my case), only a few mm adjustment needed in the end, but still needed. Given the only non bodged references I had were the bulkhead, and the top 2 inches of the offside heelboard though, I will take being a few mm wrong somewhere!

[Nick Jones]

I think there is a small problem with the (Heritage) sill pressings currently available. There’s not quite enough material at the back to get them to meet the wing nicely and have the door fit right in the bottom rear corner. On 3 out of the 4 we’ve done in the last 5 years we’ve widened the rear 3 - 4” of the step ( tapering to about 5mm max at the rear) to get the fit right. The 4th was a much older pressing with a BL sticker and worked as it was.

Nick

[AlanT]

Hi Pete,

all I can did is that repro sills didn’t fit on mine, originals do. Pay extra for the originals. Repros are narrow on the top section (at least mine were).

It is far harder if the car has had previous poor repairs though as alignment is tricky to get back once it’s gone. I ended up making all sorts of ways to pull things to shape before welding. 

Alan

[AlanT]

Oh - don’t make my error! Wind up the window in the door when test fitting the sill. I am about 3mm tighter than I’d like against the screen frame at the top, full close. The good news is that a bit of glass adjustment is possible to solve this if you’ve already committed…

[Josef]

22 hours ago, AlanT said:

It is far harder if the car has had previous poor repairs though as alignment is tricky to get back once it’s gone. I ended up making all sorts of ways to pull things to shape before welding.

Same! I had jacks, axle stands, ratchet straps, a door gap tool and bits of wood all cobbled together to hold the whole thing in a sensible shape. 

[AlanT]

Hi @Josef I was embarrassed to say I’d resorted to ratchet straps off the ceiling beams…glad I’m not the only one who has gone random to correct a wonky car!

[Sparky_Spit]

I'm really glad I came across this posting as I have very poor sill/door/B-post issues, exactly as above, ever since I replaced it all quite a few years ago, and have been collecting a few panels when I find them cheaply to do a better job on it. All very good stuff - thanks!