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Show us your 1915 pass front door line up please
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 2:05 pm
by FATMAN
I have been around a lot of Model T Fords in my life and it seems like almost every 1915 front passenger door sticks out at the bottom, I have had a super nice original 15 touring and it looked just like all the others, the front of the door lines up nice, I just watched Steve Jelf's video and his is the same way, just curious, Bob
Re: Show us your 1915 pass front door line up please
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 2:57 pm
by Retro54
January 1915 touring body. Nice and tight in my situation. Pretty sure your door sag is just from age/use. Common in many years of Ts. Can be fixed with a diagonal cable and turn buckle on the interior wood door frame.
Re: Show us your 1915 pass front door line up please
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:58 pm
by Jerry VanOoteghem
I've always attributed that misalignment to the body being spread open a bit. Meaning, the dimension from right side to left side arm rest has spread open, or that the right side body panel leans out at the top a bit too much. Given that, I think that it's not so much a door problem as it is a body problem. The body being more prone to sag than the door...
Reminds me of an otherwise very nice 1915 Runabout that was up for Grand Champion judging at Old Car Festival many years ago. The door protruded so far at the bottom that there was actually a gap between the body and the door corner. The owner was constantly, and very nonchalantly, swinging the door open, so as to hide the misalignment. Pretty funny to watch him actually. No, it didn't win....
Re: Show us your 1915 pass front door line up please
Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2019 5:09 pm
by HornsRus
when you have rewooded 300 bodies.as i have you will know what causes this!!!!!!!!!! charley
Re: Show us your 1915 pass front door line up please
Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2019 5:05 am
by Allan
Duncan and Fraser cured this problem on all the bodies they built using a twist bar. This is a piece of 2' X 1/8" flat mild steel screwed to the inside of the wooden door framework. To pull the bottom of the door inwards, the front end of the bar was screwed down and the bar was twisted so that the top edge at the back end touched the timber, but the bottom edge was proud. As the two screws were tightened, the wooden frame was pulled inwards to meet the twist bar, thus setting the frame in line with the body. This simple technique allowed the door to be pulled in either direction, without pulling the frame out of square, and without interfering with door latches and trims. When I rebuilt the body on my Canadian 1915 tourer, I used these to make the doors fit.
Hope this helps,
Allan from down under.