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Adjusting Doors

93GreenX

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August 9, 2002
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City, State
Florida
Year, Model & Trim Level
93 XLT
I've noticed more so recently that the doors on my 4 door XLT have a substantial amount of rattle when on any kind of bumpy road. On the liftgate I was able to adjust the post that the latch on the door latches too. But the stud on the doors are threaded straight into the door jam. Would all of the door latches simply be worn and are not closing as tighly as they should? Could worn out weatherstripping also contribute to this?

It's just kind of annoying feeling like my vehichle is about to fall apart1.
Any help is appreciated!
 



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It could be a little bit of everthing. The bushings on the door hinge pins tend to wear out first. This is most noticed when the door is first opened and drops slightly. Sometimes the catch pins on the jamb wear out as well. Mine have a plastic bushing around them and the plastic is worn. Also worn weather stripping could be a factor.

I would start by checking the hinge pin bushing first. You can buy a repair kit for this problem.
 






93GreenX said:
I've noticed more so recently that the doors on my 4 door XLT have a substantial amount of rattle when on any kind of bumpy road. On the liftgate I was able to adjust the post that the latch on the door latches too. But the stud on the doors are threaded straight into the door jam. Would all of the door latches simply be worn and are not closing as tighly as they should? Could worn out weatherstripping also contribute to this?

It's just kind of annoying feeling like my vehichle is about to fall apart1.
Any help is appreciated!


as soon as possible go out to your truck open the door and try and lift it up. if its got play in it your bushings are shot. if you don't take care of this as soon as possible the holes for your hinge pins will start ovaling out and may need to be replaced and that sucks even worse to do. go to autozone or parts america and in the "HELP!"/Motormite section(look for aisle full of misc. crap all in red packaging) find the hinge pin kit with the part number #38410(i think thats it, it may not start with 38 but i know it ends with 410, just look for the 410 they all start with the same 2 digits anyway. you'll need 2 kits, one for each hinge. total cost will be just under 10 USD for both kits. i recomend doing the top hinge and then the bottom thats how i did mine. start by placing a jack under the back end of the door and lift the door evenish to take the wight off the fried pins. then on the top hinge use a dremel or something similar grinde the top of the pin off flush with the hinge bracket. then try and grind a dimple into the center of the pin to help center your punch. now find something thats STEEL (thats important, notice the caps) about a 1/4 inch in diameter and at least a foot long. then for then next 20 min smash down on the punch as hard as you can with a BFH (2 pound sledge would be ideal but i did it with a plain old claw hammer) hers some more caps, hell i'll even use boldPAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO WHICH WAY THE HAMMER WILL GO IF YOU PISS OR YOUR PUNCH SNAPS OR YOU WILL SMASH YOUR WINSHIELD now ith the pin out for the time being stick a screwdriver or something in there to keep the door from falling off while we start on the second hinge. on the bottome were going to do this a little diffrent. grind out the BOTTOM of the pin this time and then drill hole (i used a 1/4 inch bit) in the bottom of the pin and stick you punch in the hole. then knock the pin up. the hole makes this step easier because of the way they press them in there or something. how with a body holding the door straight but with the jack holding the weight of the door(your buddy can't do both at once no matter how hard he tries, trust me on this) slide the door back a few inches, it won't look like it but theres plenty of slack in that wireing harness. use a flat head screwdriver to pry out the remains of the factory 4 bronze bushings. you'll probably notice the the semi-circular now due to extreme wear, and use a screwdriver and hemmer to take in the new bushings, this may be easy or hard depending on how deformed your holes are. slide door back into place and tap pins in.they pins are pointy so they go in real easy. use a pair of pliers and clip the E-clips on. you now have a working door. oh wait before you knock the pins in slop some heavy lithium like grease on them. now is aslo the time to inspect the plastic things that the door latches on to. when the door is out of alignment due to worn bushings they get chewed up real good. there are replacements for these thingies also in the "HELP!" section of your auto parts place but i cheated and just swapped the latches from the rear doors.

i think thats complete but i may or may not have left a step out. if someone finds the need to spell/grammer/translate into english my little write-up feel free
 






i just did this reently on all my doors which were loose and rattling...
i adjusted the pin on all doors and was able to oosen them and push them in just a little bit maybe 1/8 inch and tightened them, i didn;t even have the torq when i did it and used a vise grip all i had on hand.
even helped with wind noise..
 






Door Rattle Fixed

Thank you Davidmmm.

I've been chasing down the door rattle problem for some time now. Had the panel off several times. Did a lot of searching here and found several possiblities. I have the infamous loose outer door handle...found the broken spring on one side of the handle and thought that might be causing the rattle but it wasn't. The window tracks, linkage, electrical connectors and anything that could be loose inside tie door all checked out OK. No door sag so it wasn't the hinges. Heck, I could close the door with a pinky and everything seemed to line up and latch perfectly... or so I thought.

Finally entered the right search terms and hit on this thread. Sometimes the obvious solution is hiding in plain sight. Those dang striker pins that the latch mechanism grabs on to look like they bolt directly into a stationary spot in the pillar...wrong. They screw into a floating type nut behind the pillar. It gives you about 1/8 inch adustment in all directions. I adjusted it back about 1/64 inch and guess what... The latch mechanism grabs much tighter and no more rattle. I'm a happy guy...you gotta love this site.

Lee
 






It is nice. I had that problem and i figured what the hell let me try that. they do close really tight now which is so nice now..
 






Yeah... I'm guessing the latch mechanism just gets tired and worn out over time. 72K on my 98 and the drivers door (which obviously gets the most use) was the main culprit. The constant rattle right around my left ear was driving me nuts. Nice to have some adjustment in those striker pins to compensate for the wear and tear. Door closes tight now and rattle free. Thanks again.

Lee
 






93GreenX
Could be your door strikers. There's a little plastic bushing that goes around the striker. All 4 of mine were gone or broken causing my doors to rattle when I hit bumps. Replaced them only a few weeks ago & it's been fine since. Shouldn't need to adjust them. Mine had an outline of the old one & I lined the new ones up with that.
 






could be different between your 94 nd 2nd generatons.
 






The plastic bushings around the striker bolts on my Gen 2 X were all in good shape. I could definately see where the bushings could deteriorate from use but that wasn't the case with me. The actual adjustment of the striker bolt did the trick.

Lee
 






same here just was curious cause the bushing on mine were all ok also.
 






On my 92 the striker pins (I think that is what they're called) did not have plastic or anything around them. Just bare metal. And I adjusted them and all my rattle is gone. Works like a charm.
 






On my '91, I had the driver side fender off doing some body repair and it was the perfect time to replace the door hinge bushings. Also on every one of my early Explorers, the plastic was missing off of the striker posts. In my stuff I had a roll of 1/2 PEX tubing. Tough stuff, polyethylene crossed linked. I used about an inch per striker post. The 300' roll cost $90-. I fixed each post for $00.025 or 2.5 cents each. You have a choice of colors too. Red, blue, white. Their may be more colors...Also my striker posts are in the factory adjustment spot.
 






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