Strength/Body repair question?

[riverbum]

i would weld toward the top of the jambs too. as far as the rockers go, you can weld just behind the door jamb and a few inches up.

[Groover]

Speaking of my insanity in trying this, does anybody have drawings/diagrams/exploded views of the body assembly for the 64 Comet? Would be helpful to see how it goes together.

[Groover]

And does anybody feel strongly that I should remove the rear axle before raising the car? for weight reduction purposes?

[Groover]

Jack it up, jack it up, buddy gonna cut and grind.

Observe the poor man's rotisserie.



Jack up the car, and the poor man rotates underneath it.

We'll add two more braces tomorrow (front and back) to keep it from bowing out when we start cutting out the inner rockers.

[CALIFORNIA CALIENTE]

Align the doors,I can see the drivers door is not lined up with quarter panel.I built 12" high blocks from 4X4 lumber and set them on wheel skates,then placed the tires on the blocks,works great. ROY.

[riverbum]

is the door misaligned or is the molding misaligned? it's hard for me to tell

[Groover]

Here's the other side



The trim is a bit of an optical illusion. On the Driver's side, I know the back piece is loose and that may make it look misaligned.

We're going to do some more alignment today. I didn't want to OPEN the doors until I had some support under the back and front in case the doors are holding it together.

When you say align the doors, I assume in this case it means BEND/ALIGN the car until the doors line up again, right (not to actually tinker with the doors - which would just make them aligned to a bad body)?

[juddp39532]

Make sure the top is up and the front latches line upm also!

[Groover]

Thanks Juddp. Good catch. Hadn't thought of that. If I get this straight, it will be a miracle.

[Groover]

So today we removed the rear axle and added supports under the front and rear, but it doesn't seem to correct the door alignment the way I'd like/expect.

Here are the door photos now.

Driver's Side:




And here's the passenger side:



I'm think I'm ok with the Driver's side. The trim is misaligned which may throw off the visual, but the top and bottom of the door is pretty close and it opens and closes nicely.

On the passenger side, however, you can see that the gap at the top back is wide, and when I open the door, the door pops up just a bit. This leads me to believe the back is sagging which makes sense considering there is virtually nothing supporting the inner rocker in the back behind the doors (and no inner rocker for that matter), BUT... I tried all sorts of jacking positions under the passenger rear frame (just inside the bumper) and no position made the alignment better.

I keep thinking if I raise the rear it will push the back closer at the top and close that gap, but raising the rear makes no difference.

Any help on where I need to jack this up to make this side align? I suppose I could place weight inside to push this down, but that seems wrong.

When I go back I'll put the top on (thanks Juddp) and that may help pull the back up?

Help.

[riverbum]

big hammer, torch and sawzall.

have you tried jacking the right front to help close the gap? if it was me, and i am in no way a body man, i would jack the right front and right rear frames and do a little custom work with a big hammer. i would hammer around the rocker area with a 2x4 laying flat on the inside rocker. strike the board with the hammer to evenly distribute the impact. start out easy and check the bottom door gap and the top gap after each lick of the hammer. REMEMBER, i am not a body man and i may be giving bad advice. it's only how i would do it.

most restored and customized cars you see are over-restored and painstakingly picked over to get those gaps perfectly aligned. if you look at unrestored originals and properly restored cars, the gaps aren't as perfect as the customs.

good luck and you will figure it out with a little work and a lot of measuring

[eckenber]

Groover, came across this website a while ago that may help. Go to http://www.joesfalcon.com/ He did a 64 Falcon replacing floors and inner rockers. He stated using replacement inner rockers for 1964-65 mustang. Not exact but he made it work. Look @ the end of getting started section. Also gives email to contact him. Hope this helps.

[StPro]

If the gap along the bottom of the door is parallel to rocker raise the back of the car to close the gap at top of the door.

[StPro]

If you look at the frame on our unibody cars you actually have two sections front and rear. They each pivot on the front or rear axel. The front and rear are tied together with the rocker panel or lack thereof in your case. The front door post and door are attached to the front section. The door and post will pivot with the front half of the car The door needs to be parallel to the rocker first. Then rotate rear quarter of car to aline with back of door. I hope this quick drawing helps.

[Groover]

Good stuff folks. Keep it coming.

Forgot about the fact that the door is attached to the front piece so more precise jacking there may help. I have one support in the middle of the front, but I can go out the the passenger side with a support to push the door down at the back.

The CAD drawing is exactly what I have set up (minus the wheel supports since the wheels and back axle are off). I'm going to get some screw jacks so I can more precisely jack up each corner instead of the 4" x 4" cross support at the back.

And I've contacted Joe to see if he'll let me bend his ear a bit on the phone.

Hard to imagine folks like me doing this kind of stuff back before the old internet came about.