Morris Minor Owners Club

Happy New Year to you all.

As part of my plans to tidy up the bodywork of my MM, my driver’s door has a kink at the bottom (see picture) which sticks out circa 1” (25mm) and just before I go mad in trying to straighten it, does anyone have any suggestions as to the cause and the best way to rectify please?

Thanks.

My first port of call would be the striker plate and latch. They could have moved too far forward. Just loosen them and move tham back. I hope it is as simple as that.

As the top of the door does not appear to be out, I fear that it will be more complicated than just the striker plate. Another reason for the door to stick out could be incorrect sill alignment and/or fitment of the kick plate (cover plate), or an excessively thick draught excluder. Worst case is possibly a badly fitted repair panel to the bottom of the door.

Adjustment is available on both the top and bottom hinges, and on both the pillar side and the door side of each hinge, so it can get quite complicated; particularly as you also need to retain the correct adjustment in relation to the wing.

The ideal way to align the door is to remove or at least slacken the top section (bolts on rear edge of door plus under quarterlight and base of forward upright), and then get the bottom lined up. Once done, adjust and fix the top section to match. Without doing this, you will be fighting the close fit of the top.

You may be lucky and find that you can "just" slacken one side of the bottom hinge and push it in a bit; but a lot depends on what the rest of the alignment is like - from what I can see in the photos, it looks pretty good, so I would be reluctant to disturb too much. Unless you are going for concourse judging, it may be better to leave it as it is - I have seen plenty like that, and quite a few a lot worse.

Hi KK, Thanks for your reply, and that was what I originally thought, but even adjusting the striker plate didn’t work.

Hi Simmitc, Thanks for your input, and as you indicate the top and wing edge is within allowable alignment, and I am now suspecting that you could be right in suggesting an incorrect sill alignment, as one of the jobs I was planning was to repair the inner bottom door plate, which has holes appearing, but not enough to loosen the outer door panel to give this kink.

The doors on my 2 door are a similar strange fit. I fear mine is due to poor alignment of sills or repair panels when rebuilt decades ago, as simmitc has suggested.

I'll get around to looking at them sometime....

It could be a trick of the light, but in the second picture, it looks like the door bottom has been badly repaired in the past.
The curvature of the door bottom just doesn't look right to me.
As I say, it could just be the reflection.

Thanks everyone for your contributions, which is much appreciated, and it is convincing me to possibly looking at taking the door off to check straightness etc. and as I was planning to repair the inner door bottom with a repair kit, it may be wise to get an outer panel kit at the same time? Thanks again.