Hi Lads
As part of my renovation of my ARR Ruby I have at present removed both doors (the last renovation who ever did it wasn't done very well the hinge bolts was a right assortment of unf,metric. and unc, now replaced with 1/4 inch bsf, bolts used as hinge pins now replaced with dowel pins).
I have stained all the wood work which is in good condition and under sealed the inner side of the panels, I now have no play in the hinge's but the drivers door as dropped about a inch when closed the line down the side of the Ruby dose not line up I have tried putting a spacer behind the hinge but that dose not line it up.
Has any members been successful in over coming this problem in lining up the door, also thinking of fitting the door cards with chrome headed self tapper's with cup washers instead of the nails.
What do you think ?
Your Ruby is most likely suffering from the very common 'droop' that afflicts many a 7. Over time the bodyshell becomes distorted and the fit of the doors becomes less and less correct. Think of the bodyshell slightly banana in profile and you will understand the effect. There is no easy way to cure this and most of us just live with it.
I have never seen it done but I am told that the cure involves taking the body off the chassis, inserting into the passenger compartment a couple of strategically placed acro props and winding them out to bend the body back to shape. Then repaint the whole thing because the paint has cracked off. Not for the faint hearted! Would be very interesting to hear if any forum members have attempted the process with a Ruby.
I've restoring a ruby chassis at the moment
And when I place the chassis upside
Down on a flat board it has bent and there is a gap of
About 1" , I'm going to clamp it down and with gas torch
Heat the rails up in the middle to hope fully make flat
Well tell result after weekend!
My problem I ask questions that other people don't like?
Like have you got that for an investment or for fun?
I had the same problem with my special chassis (although this was a short wheelbase). I seem to remember being advised to cold bend the chassis rails as heating them up could alter the metal properties. (Do a search for the forum thread).
I achieved this using a length of 40mm square box section bolted each end to the rail with threaded rod, and then mounting a a small jack between the two. In my case the bend was localised so the point load of a single jack was effective in bending the rail straight. I also had the luxury that the chassis was in pieces so each rail could be attacked individually.
In you case you may need to use two jacks to provide a more distributed load along the rail?
21-08-2019, 06:28 PM (This post was last modified: 21-08-2019, 06:40 PM by Martin Prior.)
We regularly deal with "dropped doors". The most common cause is that the scuttle has settled on its mountings on the front chassis cross member. Remove the fixing bolts and gently jack the front of the body up; the door fit should improve as you do. Once it's as good as it's going to get, insert some packing between the chassis and the body and re-bolt.
If the gap really is as much as an inch, then you probably are into Acrow prop territory!
When it gets a bit more radical......ratchet straps, sash cramps and (out of sight) two hydraulic jacks. But just look at that door fit!
Before you get too carried away with jacks and acro props just be aware that if you try to correct one side of the car more than the other, you can easily twist the screen aperture out of true. At best this will mean the screen doesn't seal, at worst it will break when you try to close it.
Most of our cars have had welding done to the floors and /or accident damage at some time in their lives, both of which can cause problems.
This is not an answer to your problem but it does give a feel for the problems that came my way through naivety and inexperience.
I purchased my ARQ all in pieces, before I took the body off the chassis and before I removed any of the worm infested metal which was effectively all of the lower 6 to 10” of bodywork and floor pan, I put in rigid steel bracing and only removed small sections of metal at any one time, to minimise any movement.......or so I thought!
When I had completely weld repaired the body shell and floor pan with good metal I trial fitted the unrestored doors onto their hinges to work out what I needed to do. Much to my horror the doors were fouling at the top of the door frame at the front and rear of each door. When I aligned the door/body moulding and set the gap at the rear of the door, I found there was a gap at the front of the door that went from nothing at the moulding to was as much as 5/8” at the bottom of the door.
Obviously there had been some serious movement of the shell, now whether this was already there before my work or was already there, I simply do not know. What I had not done was check the door fit prior to all my work on the body shell, mea culpa.
It took a lot of work and soul searching to increase the door width from the body moulding down to the bottom and trim the top of the doors to fit the frames, but it worked in the end.
Once finished the body line did match initially but as time has gone on the drivers door has sunk again and this has been adjusted with tapered shims at the bottom hinge, and that is where we are now.
Denis S
My RP suffers from a bit of "Brewers droop" with the driver's door being slightly worse than the other. I did try Martin's jacking idea but all that happened was that the whole car moved. I suspect it was a result of a repair to the shell that was undertaken prior to me acquiring the car over 35 years ago. I have decided that it is part and parcel of the "patina" and I am happy just to live with it. The risk of jacking and twisting the windscreen aperture has reinforced my opinion that it's best left alone.
04-01-2021, 05:18 PM (This post was last modified: 04-01-2021, 05:21 PM by Zetomagneto.)
I wouldn’t put any heat into the rails, if you do it will probably just sag even more after straightening.
Cold straightening as suggested by Howard would be best and is the time honoured method described by
Wheatley and Morgan, if you have their book see p31
