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Fixed the door slaming issue..


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I'm sure most of you guys know the pain of having to SLAM THE HELL out of your doors to get them to close.. Well, I do. Lots of time spent adjusting the striker's and door hinges.. still, had to really bash the doors to make them shut. (ussualy the first one would catch, but it wasn't compleatly latched and the doors would rattle around over bumps and such) I thought I was just really bad at aligning things, or the whetherstriping was to thick... Well, today I had a closer look and made some modifications to the latch on the body. Hard to describe, but if you look at the door on your Z you'll understand. The door has a little round cylinder with two 'bumps' on it, about 90* apart. The lower one (pointing towards the ground) hits first on the body latch, causing the cylinder to rotate and pushing the second 'bump' around/into the latch on the body. Seams to me that the past 30 years of closing the door had worn down the metal so much that the second 'bump' wasn't rolling into it's proper spot, as it was hitting the 'point' where the cutout starts. I simply ground back the little radius with a dremel and WOW! The doors close like a new car! I don't know if this is any help to anyone, but I thought it was worth posting anyway.. I'll try to get a pic to describe what I've done..

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Guest JAMIE T

That issue is usually the result of the "Precision" brand weather stipping being slightly too thick. Mikelly shattered his drivers door glass having to slam the door.

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Ahh yes, BUT, just to see, I pulled the weather striping OFF at one point, and it closed a bit better, but still not properly. I was worried about shatering my glass too, as it rattles around a bit to begin with.. Looks really bad to when you're leaving a car show and you have to 'take a run' with the door wide open, and wail it shut. And it STILL doesn't close! :lol: I'll go get the digicam right now..

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Ok, so if you know what the door piece looks like (rotating cylinder with two bumps on it) you can figure out the first one hits the area marked in blue. This causes the cylinder to rotate, 'rolling' the second bump into the small radius, and latching the door closed.

 

The yellow line points to the spot where mine was hitting, and causing that 'clunk' sound. This point was actually smashed really bad from years of abuse, and took a small amount of grinding to fix the peand/mushroomed metal.

 

I then realized the root of the problem; The area marked in blue had been worn over the years and was not in the correct position anymore to allow full rotation of the door cylinder. (well, I guess the door piece could be slightly worn too.. seames to be stronger metal though..) So I used the dremel tool with a small grinding stone to grind back the area in red.. about 1/16" in the end. I just took a bit off at a time, blended it in to the original rad, and closed the door till I didn't hear/feel it hitting.

 

latch_body.jpg

 

I assume that the 3 or more body jobs this car had over the years didn't help, and a lot of folks probly tried to adjust the latch mechanism but did a poor job, or gave up and just slammed them. At one point I peared into the door while trying to close it and saw that even though it was hitting, you could still get the door to close.. it just took a lot of force, and would actually move the whole door UP as it scraped in to place, before finally latching. I feel like a fool for not realizing this sooner, but oh well.. live and learn. Hope this helps. :)

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So what I gather is this:

 

The area in blue is now closer to the area in red, and the two rollers don't align anymore?

 

You grind out the red area to match the distance that it used to be from the blue?

 

Then adjust the plate out further towards the door... I suppose?

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So what I gather is this:

 

The area in blue is now closer to the area in red' date=' and the two rollers don't align anymore?

 

You grind out the red area to match the distance that it used to be from the blue?

 

Then adjust the plate out further towards the door... I suppose?[/quote']

 

 

Yup, exactly. :) It doesn't take much, and instead of the factory sharp edge, (left from the original stamping operation I supose..) I put a small round on it just to help as a 'lead in' if the door striker does come into contact.

 

Trouble;

I never thought about the later Z's having diffrent latches.. (mine is a 75) From what I've seen, they were all the same.. Do you have a pic of the later style latch? Maybe there is a simmilar fix for them..

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Sorry no pictures On the door... the latch parts are inside the door with a slit in the sheet metal for operation access.. On the door opening there is this stud intergrated to an L shaped round guide bar all on a plate using 3 mounting holes... Looks like it is beyond wearing out and improvement over earlier models. It also looks like the 78 doors and doorway striker plate could interchange on an earlier model. Since my earlier post my closing problem was solved by a liberal dose of WD-40

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Regarding the weatherstripping-

We recently finished a total resto on an original owner 1971 and started with the factory door weatherstrip, now only available for 280Z's but it still fits. Way too thick. Les Cannaday at Classic Datsun fixed us up and the doors close great.

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I used the mcmaster weatherstripping that people have suggested and I didn't have any problems with closing my doors.

 

That is, until I put the door panels on, that 1/4" was just enough to hit my driver side seat. doh.

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I used the mcmaster weatherstripping that people have suggested and I didn't have any problems with closing my doors.

 

That is' date=' until I put the door panels on, that 1/4" was just enough to hit my driver side seat. doh.[/quote']

 

Just had to comment, that is one beautiful Z you have there. One day when I get "done" with my engine, I'll do some body work. :-D

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Man, this works great!! I've been having major problems with my drivers door, and this fixed it! Good find man. I'm going to sticky this for others.

 

 

Heheh.. cool! A post I started got made a sticky! :lol: I feel all warm and fuzy inside.. Oh.. that might be the beer though..

 

 

Glad I could help out! :D

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Just had to comment, that is one beautiful Z you have there. One day when I get "done" with my engine, I'll do some body work. :-D

 

Thanks, it looks nice in pictures, but my paint job is a "20 footer" in real life. I started on the body first because it was a beater, now time for the motor!

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I used the aftermarket OEM style replacement weatherstrip from MSA... alot cheaper than OEM. Initially it was hard as **** to close the doors, but after a couple weeks in the Texas scorching sun and a few open and closes.. they work very nicely. No slamming at all. Alot of problem with door slamming is miss alignment, worn hinges, striker plates, etc. A couple hrs adjusting will save ya weeks of headaches. But then again I have the later style latches... 78

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