Explain to me- 73 Impala doors.

I stuck this in offtopic, because I expect this to go extremely poorly.

A bit of backstory. I'm a paint whore. I love it. Glass candy deep flake super smooth wet as hell just WILD... all of it. Flips flakes flats chameleons candys you name it. And where do you see the wildest paint? The brightest colors? The south Florida donk scene. Up here in the frozen north we have winter dirt brown and summer dirt brown. Also parking lot beige. Not a whole lot. So- I watch donk parade videos from time to time, to see wild paint, new colors, laugh at the stupid wheels, etc. And something i've noticed- 73 impala doors. Coupes and convertibles, mostly, and some four doors. NO ONE CAN SEEM TO HANG THE DAMN THINGS. I've seen cars with paint jobs cost more than my entire fleet, doors look like they were hung by an epileptic mid fit. Now, I'm no body shop expert. And I know damn well those doors weigh about as much as a VW beetle. HOWEVER- there should be no excuse for some crooked ass doors when you're spending that kind of money to keep the ride straight. This leads me to believe- that they must be impossible to hang. I've done hoods, and i've done fenders, and doors. All on smaller cars, but the panel gaps weren't THAT hard to line up. Is there something with the 73 era Impala and its ilk that makes it impossible to hang a straight door? Are the hinges that bad? Someone explain this to me, because every time I watch one of these damn things, I can forgive NEARLY everything, but when I see berkeleyed up panel gaps or poorly radiused fenders, I lose my mind.

Yep. the hinge pins on those heavy doors oval out so you can line them up until your eyes turn blue and they will still sag. There are ways to resolve this, but those folks would rather spend their money on bling and hinge repair kits ain't bling.

it comes down to the quality of the work being done: i'd bet that they don't spend a lot of time worrying about things like "hinge pins" and "panel gaps" or even "using quality materials on the interior".. most of the "metal work" involved in prepping for paint consists of mixing up gallons of filler.. they just make it "good enough" to look cool and let it ride..

The 4 door doors weigh 100 pounds each, with rust holes. I scrapped a set so i know. If you keep an eye on bushings and keep them lubed you should be fine, but fee people regularly lube their hinge pins. Never had them sag on my 71 caprice 2 door.

Part of the reason is the taper to the sides of the cowl. If you move a hinge forward a bit it also moves in a bit toward the center of the car tipping the door on the striker. If the car's tweaked that compounds the issues and a lot of them get done without replacing hinge pins or body mounts first. As Novaderrik mentioned a lot of the owners just care about the overall look and don't worry too much about building on a sound foundation.

Replacement sheet metal for the 71+ Impalas isn't readily available so a lot of rusty bent up junk gets patched and the reproduction quarters that are made aren't even close to original so they get chopped up to fit.

Here in S. FL there's a lot of places willing to do low quality work. Combine that with people who have a dream they can't really afford and you see folks getting what they pay for.

I build some Donks so I'm involved a bit with that segment of the car culture. I see a lot of bondo buckets but there are some nicely built cars out there. Here's a 71 I've been building and it took a while to get the door gaps pretty good.

[URL=http://s240.photobucket.com/user/NOTATA/media/customer%20cars/002_zps683384f5.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://s240.photobucket.com/user/NOTATA/media/customer%20cars/001_zpsb15790a3.jpg.html][/URL]

This raises an interesting point. Engine blocks get blue printed. Why don't body panels. It shouldn't be impossible to get accurate measurements of the factory specs of all the sheet metal. From those build templates of what your sheet metal should look like and get to work.

Rad_Capz wrote: Part of the reason is the taper to the sides of the cowl. If you move a hinge forward a bit it also moves in a bit toward the center of the car tipping the door on the striker. If the car's tweaked that compounds the issues and a lot of them get done without replacing hinge pins or body mounts first. As Novaderrik mentioned a lot of the owners just care about the overall look and don't worry too much about building on a sound foundation. Replacement sheet metal for the 71+ Impalas isn't readily available so a lot of rusty bent up junk gets patched and the reproduction quarters that are made aren't even close to original so they get chopped up to fit. Here in S. FL there's a lot of places willing to do low quality work. Combine that with people who have a dream they can't really afford and you see folks getting what they pay for. I build some Donks so I'm involved a bit with that segment of the car culture. I see a lot of bondo buckets but there are some nicely built cars out there. Here's a 71 I've been building and it took a while to get the door gaps pretty good. [URL=http://s240.photobucket.com/user/NOTATA/media/customer%20cars/002_zps683384f5.jpg.html][/URL]

And those are perfectly reasonable door gaps. They don't look all saggy. I was watching footage of the MLK parade (Boy was that hilarious) and EVERY car had horrible cuts, saggy doors, it was just a mess!

McTinkerson wrote: This raises an interesting point. Engine blocks get blue printed. Why don't body panels. It shouldn't be impossible to get accurate measurements of the factory specs of all the sheet metal. From those build templates of what your sheet metal should look like and get to work.

They do. Its called the Riddler Award.

McTinkerson wrote: This raises an interesting point. Engine blocks get blue printed. Why don't body panels.

...and this is why my boss's Chevelle has been at the body guy's for something like five years. Everything must line up perfect, all gaps must be perfect, and (the kicker) it must all be done in metal, no Bondo.

It shouldn't be impossible to get accurate measurements of the factory specs of all the sheet metal. From those build templates of what your sheet metal should look like and get to work.

I don't think those really existed. Restyles happened every year or two, the stamping dies would wear out clanging out the thick sheet that they used, and there was little actual precision involved, with oanels being hung with shims and lots of adjustment available.

Heck, even into the 80s... the spec that sticks in my mind is that tolerance stack on a Fox-body Mustang could mean a difference in overall length of over an inch. Now you know why aftermarket parts rarely fit right, the car they made the pattern from was built differently than yours.

I've seen enough unrestored/survivor cars to see that nothing had what we today would consider to be remotely good fit and finish. The body manuals only specify how to adjust things and not really any kind of spec, the only specs you see are for things like installing decals.

So you line up the doors and fenders and hood and cowl up with each other as best as you can, and then it all goes to hell as soon as the body mounts start sagging, and then some dipwad leans on your door while it is open and twists the A-pillar slightly. (Which is why I go ballistic if people lean on my car esp. if it's an open door!)

McTinkerson wrote: This raises an interesting point. Engine blocks get blue printed. Why don't body panels. It shouldn't be impossible to get accurate measurements of the factory specs of all the sheet metal. From those build templates of what your sheet metal should look like and get to work.

It wouldn't surprise me if horrible panel gaps were the factory specs on mid '70s GM products. This was back when they handled some adjustments for doors that wouldn't close with a sledgehammer.

Ok, maybe not quite as horrible as on a car after over 40 years on the road, but still, if they did that "run a marble over the panel gaps" ad Lexus did on a brand new Impala, you'd probably have the marble fall in at some point.

I wonder if the fact that laser scanning is now a semi affordable thing will change that? If you laser scanned 10 (more would obviously be better) vehicles focusing on one panel at a time and took the average. That might allow for some data. I think it's time to dig out the Kinect and ReconstructMe and start experimenting.

i found some interesting panel fitment on my straight and solid 71 Nova. there were gaps of 1/4" between structural body panels (like where the floorpan was welded to the rockers) that were filled in with seam sealer.. i did a lot of measuring on that car, and it was straight within 1/16" in every direction, which means that those gaps were probably engineered into the panels to allow them wiggle room when they were putting the stampings onto the welding fixtures for the body.

The highly variable gap is actually a feature if you think about it medium hard - ease of assembly.

Automakers are a lot better at hiding it these days, but when you look at a 60s-era Mopar such as the '66 Coronet I occasionally work on, you can see where some clever engineer put an extra fold or a little bit of extra clearance into the sheet metal in order to make the guy on the line's life easier.

Then you get a little further down the car and see where the guy on the line used self-tapping metal screws directly into painted body panels to hold the washer nozzle line on.

In reply to MadScientistMatt:

Yeah, I was under the impression if you bought a new car back then, it wasn't uncommon to go straight to the body shop to square up the panels if you cared about such things. Cars were cheaper and more frequently replaced back then.