The driver's door on my EL Falcon has dropped at the back of the door to the point where the rubber seal has been destroyed on the bottom of the door and also the bottom of the door is starting to scratch the body of the car.

does anyone have any ideas as to how to realign the door? or would it be easiest to take it to a panel beaters or something?

Thanks in advance for your help.

If you have the muscle, you can try a panel beater's trick. As the sheet metal around the hinges is quite thin, you can give the door a heave upwards when it's on a 45 degree angle. Then close the door and see how much it's moved. Do it a bit at a time or you might lift it too much. I had one panel beater fix a door on a jap car using this method.

Another way, which is time consuming, is to take the door off its hinges. Place a piece of wood against the top hinge and use a rubber mallet knock it back into the body. A few blows at a time, and then fit the door on and see how it closes. It's handy to have someone to help lift the door on and off.

Thanks for your suggestions, just wondering though... Wouldn't lifting the door upwards while it's open weaken the hinges or body of the car?

The hinges are quite strong and any flexing there will transfer to the bodywork. Unless your car bodywork is rusted out, I can't see any problems. Adjusting the doors is not something that's done very often. You could try loosening the top hinge bolts and see if that gives you any room for adjustment.

old trick they used to do at GMH when I was an apprentice in the 70's ( and this was a recognised, do it to just about every car type deal) was to get a round length of timber about 6 inches in diameter and about 8 feet long ( those perma pine posts you get are perfect) and its similar to what's been said about opening the door and lifting it , they'd open the door about a foot, put the timber on the top of the door sill with the other side against the bottom of the door, then lift from the end. It looks scarily rough when you first see it - they'd flex the door a good 6 inches up, but when you took the pressure back off and tried shutting the door again, it would have lifted maybe 10 mm. Normally this'd be all you needed. True, you could loosen bolts slightly to help, but you also introduce too much flexibility and nothing really bends very much. First time i saw it I was horrified they could be that rough on a brand new car, but it works. I've since done it to a half dozen cars - once you get the knack you can actually be really accurate, and do it in small increments if you want..

A block of wood under the door behind the outer panel, then crank up the car jack underneath will do the trick....

Mike

buy new hinge pins ,,get them from ford with the sleeve .
i got them for my ef ,but havent fitted them as yet .not sure how much of a hassle they will be .

hope this helps .

Rare spares also do some hinge pin kits to fix them properly. I've got a kit to put thru my drivers door hinge, which sagged badly, but I ended up with a good hinge on a car I wrecked so painted & fit that for now instead, quicker fix lol.

Cheers

ToranaGuy

I went to the wreckers and got a couple of better hinges. Take the door off and put your new hinges on the door. Put the door back on the car, but only do the hinges up finger tight. Line it all up (take out the catch if you have to). Once its lined up you can tighten the hinges right up. My door was sagging bad and it took a bit of force to close it, after I did this a light push will close it properly.