Mounting the Doors

I am trying to mount the doors on my CMC. The holes drilled by the previous owner are not matching up to the plates on the subframe. I am afaid I will have to redrill and move the hinges around to make it fit.

Has anyone had this issue? Any techniques I can use to accurately mount the hinges without drilling a ton of holes?

Thanks
Todd

Don't redrill the holes on the body! You'll be sorry if you do. You may only need to clean the threads. The door side is where all the adjustment is made. You can elongate the holes on door side. There are removable threaded plates that are in the door. Just make the holes in the fiberglass a large diameter.

I'll agree with Joe. Don't if you don't have to!
Mine were so off that I had to re-hang them when it came back from paint.
I don't know what the conventional wisdom is, but I used wood-block cribbing with the door in the open position and filled and re-drilled the body and door edges.
My hinge plates on the inside of the door shell were good, so I attached the hinges to the doors and left the body sides hanging free.
I put a thin hospital blanket in the door sill and folded it until the door sat on top of it at the ideal height and then measured from the ground to the top of the leading and trailing ends of the door.
When I had both measurements, I stacked short four-by-four pieces of wood to the approximate heights and used shims to get it exactly the same distances in the open position, then marked the hinge holes on the door sill.
They came out acceptably well for a first effort, but I'll take more time when I re-mount them this spring.

The mounts inside between the body and subframe have holes, correct? These holes are so Off, that I can't see the screew holes inside.

I was thinking of mounting the hinges to the door, then getting chalk and covering the hinge. Then lay it in place and see where the holes outline from the chalk. Good or bad idea?

Todd

If the hole in the fiberglass are off , use a burring tool to open the glass holes up. You could even use a larger diameter drill bit Just be careful not to go into the tread steel portion. The hinges are going to cover the holes. You still will want to run a tap through the threaded area to clean them out. If the body was sitting for awhile the threads are a little rusty.

Another trick I learned is once you have mounted the hinges to the door jamb attach them to the door with the backing plate provided. Tighten them enough so that they will hold the door in place when closed gently, but still will allow you to "gently" move them if needed. Your looking to make sure the gaps are even all around the door. If the door doesn't stick out enough to be flush with the body there are shims available to use between the hinge and the jamb. If it sticks out too far you can grind down the two flat sections on the hinge to bring it in a little closer to the body lines. Once you have everything perfectly aligned drill a small hole (mine was the diameter of a framing nail) into the the hinge, through the fiberglass door skin, and into the backing plate. I then inserted a framing nail and made sure it was a tight fit. Then when you re-install the doors after paint (if you do take them off) then the nail will act as an alignment peg to return the door to the exact spot you had it before.