has anyone fixed their door sagging issue without replacing the hinges & stuff? an old skooler told me he used to fix doors in his auto body shop by using a floor jack at under the rear edge of the door & just lifting up on them re-adjusting the door that way. has anyone ever done this, these doors are so dang heavy, any other tips or trix will be helpful.

 

After years of use, sagging doors and worn hinges are common to these cars. Hinge repair or replacement is probably the correct cure as jacking on a worn hinge wont be of much help, and may cause further damage in the process.

Do a search through the threads that address sagging doors and hinge replacement.

Good luck

 

my driver side door is sagging as well, and it sucks because the door scrapes the side trim of the car when I close it. So I took a look at the hinge and basically all the needs to be replaced is the lower hinge pin. Usually you can buy a kit that has the pin and bushings that way the door can be propped up again. See if a local shop carries it!

Good Luck

 

http://www.top-downsolutions.com/

Check out this site. They have what you need to fix your door.

LON IS THE MAN!

 

I just installed the bushing kit from Lon, and MAN what a difference! My door shuts and oopens SOOOOOO easily now. I ordered my parts on Saturday at about 3:30 adn they arrived on Monday. Mind you he is in Cali, and I am in D.C.... just a few thousand miles apart... n my cat the upper bushings were the bad ones, not just the lower. just be careful about removing the darn spring... that was interesting. I popped it out using a large flat bladed screwdriver, and spent the next 20 mins trying to find out where th heck it shot to. putting it back in wasn't to hard, just used a few heavy duty zip ties, and kept pulling them tighter until the spring was compacted enough to put back in, then i cut the ties and all is good.

 

I still need to get the spring back in, I tried the zip tie thing and I finally got it compressed enough to put back in. So I cut the zip ties, and when I tried to pull the ties out I ended up pulling the spring out.. the zip tie must have been caught between the car and the spring.

I gave up on that for now.

 

The TDS kit is great I have 1 done & its like new .
As far as the spring , the zip tie is a good idea , will try it.

 

I sell all the tools to help with the installation, including the GM Door Spring Tool. Re-bending the door hinge will solve the sagging problem ONLY if the sagging is caused by the weight of the door bending the hinge. It won't solve it if the sag or slop is caused by worn hinge pins and bushings. You'll need to diagnose which is the case. Open the door and have someone raise and release the door while you inspect the upper and lower hinge pins and bushings for movement. You'll need to correct this if it is present before you can tell if the hinges have bent. Stuff the hole behind the lower hinge pin with rags to prevent things from falling into this area. It's a lot easier to stuff it with rags first than to try to retreive something that has found it's way there. Trust me, been there, done that.



Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

Good tip, my spring fell down there and I thought I'd never get it out, good thing I used to watch Mcgyver back in the day I also did the zip tie trick for the spring,but I'll bet the spring tool would sure come in handy.

 

Intersting because the 82 Shop Manual uses the flated bladed screw driver to remove the door spring. It does recommend, however, that you cover the spring with several shop towels......so that the spring doesn't disappear into the n th dimension(where did that spring go)

The shop manual also show a left had door spring tool and a right hand door spring tool. Looks like the one Lon sells replaces both of those.

Dave

 

Interesting, I hadn't read that they recommend the screwdriver method, but it does appear on page 10-5-20 of the Camaro Service Manual or 5H-8 of the Firebird Service Manual. They describe two methods of removing the door detent spring. They list the large screwdriver method and the spring tool method. I recommend wearing safety glasses with either method. The only installation method the Service Manual lists is using the Door Spring Tool.

Lon