The doors on the coupe just didn't fit precisely.
It doesn't matter how beautiful your car is, how well it's built, or how fast it goes. If there's some tiny defect anywhere, that's what everybody-including you-is going to look at. It's not fair, but it's reality.
The all-steel, full-fendered, chopped '34 three-window coupe pictured on this page is the kind of street rod that should be drawing all kinds of attention with its beautiful black cherry paint. Unfortunately, the misaligned driver-side door had rubbed through the deep dark paint in a few places. They were small places, but they got your attention. A shot of touch-up paint would make those sheetmetal zits disappear, but only until the next time the door was opened and closed. The owner wanted to fix the problem once and for all, which is how the coupe ended up at Blundell Speed & Machine.
Chad Blundell traced the problem to the custom-fabricated door hinges, souvenirs from a previous buildup. The holes in the hinge plates were a tad too large for the bolts, causing vibration when the door was slammed. The hinges had loosened, causing the door to sag forward slightly, resulting in uneven gaps. The upper rear corner had pulled inward at the B-pillar, and stuck outward at the lower front corner.
There are so many variables involved in adjusting doors that it scares a lot of people away from the job. The only trick involved is trying to isolate the problem, making small changes-one at a time-until that problem is identified and solved.
