The Camaro Club (UK)

hey, i bought a new upper door hinge as mine had worn and dropped, thought it would be a straight swap but its not having it, even lifting it as high as i can with the door open and nipping it up the doors still like an inch low on the latch side. even took the paint of the corner of the door with lifting it up so far. is it possible to fit with the wing in place or not? if so any tips?

Is the lower hinge still in good condition, usually it´s the lower one one that suffers most ?

I'm assuming that the new hinge is a reproduction, so there's no guarantee that it's exactly the same as the original. Treat this as if you're fitting two new hinges & is ideally a two person job. Fit the hinges to the door loosely & offer it up to the pillar & close the door. Then loosely bolt the hinge to the pillar. Then pack the underside of the door edge to the sill with cardboard to get it so that the door sits parallel to the sill & is the correct gap, making sure that the centre swage lines up with the one on the 1/4 panel. once the gap is correct to the sill & the 1/4 panel, have someone hold the door tightly in position so that it doesn't move whilst you tighten the bolts on the hinges. Open the door once all tight & assuming nothing moved it should only require minor adjustments from that point on. You can't bolt the wing on until the door is fitted as everything lines up in sequence. The rear 1/4 panels & sills are fixed, so that determines where everything goes. So, the door aligns to 1/4 & the sill & only then can you align the wings to the door. It's also far easier to fit the door without the wing in place hth

cheers..Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

So the wing really needs to comr off to. Fit? I'm. Not sure if its been painted with. The wing on I didn't want to crack the paint next question now then is how is the. Wing removed :p is there any tricky bolts or all just easy in sight ones

Sorry, I misread your original post, I thought that the wing was off the car. The door can be fitted with the wing on, but it's a bit of a pain to do as the forward bolts on the A pillar can be a bit awkward to get to, but it is possible. The point where the hinge mounts to the pillar is what raises or lowers the rear or front of the door. The mounting point of the hinge to the door determines the in & out of the door from the body.

Sorry, but it's going to be a bit of time & effort to get it where you want it. You need to bolt the hinge to the pillar so that it's tight, but not too tight, so that when you open the door, you're able to lift the rear edge of the door upwards to raise it, with the hinge able to move under tension, but hopefully with the hinge still holding the door at this point when you stop lifting (hope that makes sense). Once you've got the door so that its in line with the swage on the 1/4 panel tighten all the bolts up. Time consuming but possible, good luck hth

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

had another go today and was having none of it took paint off the edge of the door trying. no matter how far over i nip it up i still cant get enough tilt on it to lift the latch side up.

might have no choice but to remove wing but thats probably a nightmare to remove and line up as well.