Aligning door hinges?

[F1Luva92]

Ok, I just recently purchased a '91 2 door explorer and it was suffering from the sagging doors. I went out and bought the hinge pins from advance. I followed DeRocha's (spelling?) instructions and unfortunately ran into a snag. When i tried to get the hinges back onto the door, they won't line up where they were before. I can get the top hing lined up on the door, but it won't be anywhere close on the bottom hinge and the door still sags just as bad if not worse than before. I have been trying for the last few days to line them up in different ways to see if it gets the door closer to shutting correctly and i've made it better, then worse, then even better etc. but i can never get the door to line up right. is there a trick to aligning the door hinges? or is it just guess and check? my haynes manual essentially says guess and check, but then again... it is a haynes.

 

[Spdrcer34]

If the hinges have never been moved, loosened or replaced then their current location is the correct 'factory' location. Have the holes been 'egged' out? Meaning are they out of round?

I have done hinge pins on a few Explorers, and it was pretty straight forward.

Did you just CUT the pins, and pull them out, or did you actually remove the hinge assembly?

Ryan

 

[F1Luva92]

I loosened the assembly and then took the pins out by cutting the top and driving it downward. The door doesnt seem to rock very much when i pull up on it, but it just doesnt line up well with the rest of the truck.

 

[josh93rodeo]

Your striker pin might need adjusting?

 

[F1Luva92]

how might i go about adjusting that?

 

[josh93rodeo]

You use a torx bit on the end of it

 

[Spdrcer34]

DO NOT TOUCH THE STRIKER BOLT.

You have already loosened the hinge. DO NOT MAKE IT WORSE by loosening the striker bolt.

If the striker bolt lined up before, and has NEVER been touched, that is the last thing that is still good from the factory.

Even if you DID loosen the striker bolt, and you were able to get the hinges lines back up perfectly, the striker bolt bolt will have to go EXACTLY where it was from the factory.

Can you see the paint lines from where the hinges were from the factory?

Ryan

 

[F1Luva92]

DO NOT TOUCH THE STRIKER BOLT.

You have already loosened the hinge. DO NOT MAKE IT WORSE by loosening the striker bolt.

If the striker bolt lined up before, and has NEVER been touched, that is the last thing that is still good from the factory.

Even if you DID loosen the striker bolt, and you were able to get the hinges lines back up perfectly, the striker bolt bolt will have to go EXACTLY where it was from the factory.

Can you see the paint lines from where the hinges were from the factory?

Ryan

The paint lines are what I have been trying to line it up with, but I can't get the hinges where the paintlines are. That's my problem. I know WHERE they go, I just don't know HOW to get them there.