How to lift a sagging door on any car
Such an unpleasant defect worsens the appearance of the car, leads to uneven wear of the sealing elements and creates problems when selling the car. The service station will ask for a tidy sum to eliminate door sagging. At the same time, you can deal with this not very difficult problem with your own hands and this does not require any special knowledge or rich professional experience, since all operations to eliminate such a deficiency are quite simple and obvious.
How to quickly lift a sagging door on any car
Door sagging is mainly due to wear on the top and bottom pins that connect the door hinges to their body counterparts. To eliminate this problem, we will only deal with the lower canopy on the door side. We do not touch the upper canopies and the lower body analogue at all.
We unscrew the 2 bolts securing the lower canopy to the door using a 12 key. Note that on almost all cars the fastening is carried out using M12 bolts. If the bolts have, as they say, “soured” over many years of operation, then we pre-treat them with WD-40 lubricant or take some additional measures.
We unscrew the bolts by about 2-3 mm no more. We don’t touch the bolts that secure the canopy to the body at all; we absolutely won’t need them. By slightly loosening the lower bolts of the door canopy, we temporarily obtain increased door play, which will be completely eliminated in the future.
From ordinary sheet metal of the required thickness, for example from corrugated sheeting, we cut out U-shaped brackets, the width of which should allow the door canopy fastening bolts to fit freely. For a car 15-20 years old, four of these brackets are usually enough.
Folding the staples two at a time, we place them alternately on the 2 bolts between the door and the canopy, after first lifting the door with your knee and helping with your hand, or inviting an assistant to do this for a couple of minutes. Next, tighten the bolts, but not completely.
In this position, we check several times how the door closes and opens, including with the handle pulled out, so that the lock does not work. Nothing should touch, cling, rub or creak anywhere. Only after such a comprehensive check do we finally tighten the bolts, but now using a socket wrench or a 12mm socket.
For the last time we test the closing and opening of the door and once again make sure that the door sagging has been completely eliminated. The remaining doors on cars usually do not sag or this happens to them after more years.
