Help adjusting striker plates

[venom42]

When I got my car, the doors did not line up flush with the body when they were closed. I decided to try and adjust the striker plates to fix the problem, and created a bigger one. The driver door now lines up nicely, but I have to pull up on the handle a good bit harder than before for it to open. When it does open, it "pops" open. After screwing with the passenger door plate for 3 or so hours, I could get the door to line up fairly nicely, but you cannot open it without pushing on the edge of the door. In addition, you cannot lock it either. I put the key in the door, but it will not turn. Is there an easier way to tell what position those damn plates should be in? I was thinking I had either the top or the bottom of the plate shifted too far, but that does not appear to be the issue. Please help. I am extremely frustrated.

[EScanlon]

I thought I had posted this to the Technical Forum before, but apparently not.

Here's the link to the new post.

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12484

Hope this helps.

Enrique Scanlon

[venom42]

I had performed a search for "door and striker", but did not find what I was looking for. Your post seems to answer my questions though. Thanks. I plan to have another go at it tomorrow. I read in another post that you can loosen the striker plate bolts slightly, and close the door while holding the handle up, and this would push the plate into the correct position. Do you know if that will work? If not, I believe you have given me the info I need to correct the problem.

[zeiss150]

Just a bit of info that I had to figure out on my own. I had to adjust my door and what I found to work best was to loosen the door striker so it will move, but only if you push on it really hard ... like shutting the door on it. Then I open the door and tightend the striker plate bolts down and poof the door closes great.

An other interesting tid bit of info... If you put new door weather striping on the door wont close with out a pretty BIG slam. It takes about 5 months to get the rubber to "relax" enough to close easy. I guess it s a good thing cause that means it will last a good long time.

Good luck dude.

Rock on Z people

Matt-

P.S. great post EScanlon

[MariaAZ]

I recently installed new weatherstripping from Victoria British and, sure enough, had massive problems shutting the doors. They were a bit tricky to shut without the weatherstripping, but with it they became nearly impossible to close.

I found a post awhile back on fixing hard-to-shut doors. It mentioned little rubber caps on one of the lobes of the lock assembly that's on the door. When this piece is missing, it brings the entire door latching system out of alignment. Both my doors are missing this piece.

A previous owner came up with a solution. He/she welded a little extension on the tab of the striker plate, in effect making the tab a bit wider to accomodate the missing rubber cap. The added sliver of metal is on the outside edge of the tab where it first contacts the lobe of the locking part when the door closes. I had a friend replicate this fix on a couple old striker plates I had lying around, and now my doors close quite easily, and flush with the body; new weatherstripping and all.

I'm using this as a temporary fix, until I can get around to replacing the part that is missing the rubber cap. I don't know how adviseable it is to do it this way, but for now I'm thrilled that I don't have to put dents in my door anymore!

[2ManyZs]

Maria, can you post a pic of this "fix"? Just in case someone else wants to try the same thing in the future.

Not sure, but I think new striker plates are still available with all the hardware including the plastic (or whatever it is) block.

[MariaAZ]

Don't laugh... this is the sketch I sent to the friend who made the alteration. Yes, it looks like an ear, but you should get the idea Please pardon my most likely non-correct parts names.

The rubber piece I'm referring to is the one that's on the cam of the latching mechanism on the door itself. The cam has two lobes. The one you can see easily... the one that contacts the striker plate first... in all my Zs is bare metal. When the door is closing, the first lobe contacts the front of the tab, causing the entire cam to rotate. The rubber-capped lobe rotates down & slips into the dip behind the tab. In effect, the rubber cap makes the second lobe thicker by adding additional material.

The width of the tab on the striker plate is pretty much the same distance as is between the two lobes WHEN THE RUBBER CAP IS ON THE SECOND LOBE. When this cap is missing, the distance between the two lobes is greater, thus bringing the whole system out of alignment. The second lobe, which should slip into the channel behind the tab when the first lobe contacts the front of the tab, rotates a bit too late. This causes it to miss the channel, contacting the rear part of the striker plate instead and requiring brute force to get it to slip where it needs to go.

By increasing the width of this tab as in the illustration, I am compensating for the increased distance between the two lobes. My main concern is the metal-to-metal contact I have. I'm thinking that maybe the rubber cap is there to reduce rattle when the door is completely shut. I'm sure the rubber is there for a good reason, which is why I'm considering this a temporary fix.

[EScanlon]

A friend of mine claims to have fixed that by using a short segment of rubber hose. Don't recall if he used 1/4 or 3/8 hose.

You're right Maria, it's basically a sound deadener.

Enrique

[MariaAZ]

I was thinking of gluing rubber on, but figured the rubber would get torn off in short order by the opening & closing of the doors, not to mention jiggling from movement of the Z. It looks like the rubber is held on somewhere within the latch itself (versus being adhered to the lobe,) because I was able to move the one in my '71 a bit with the tip of a small screwdriver.

Datsrex wrote an excellent article on this door latch situation; it's in the Technical Articles forum on the last page. I tried removing just the latch from my '71 but it looks like a rather involved process that I'm not quite ready to tackle just yet

[venom42]

The top bolt on the passenger side plate stripped. What is the best way to go about fixing this?

[EScanlon]

Unfortunately, without cutting sheet metal, there isn't an easy way of accessing the captive nuts that hold the latch to the body.

The only way that I have heard of fixing a stripped nut there is to drill and tap to the next larger size bolt.

FWIW

Enrique