Spit with drooping doors.

[yorkebar]

Hey Everyone,
The doors on my 1977 spitfire are drooping and need to be lifted to shut properly, after looking at the hinges all of the bolts are tight and when the door is lifted/dropped the metal flexes on the body. i had a look inside and there is no rust/rot, and all the fixing are there. am i missing something? or should i just replace all the hinges for £80?

[itiejim]

It's usually the pins in the hinges that wear. Try lifting the doors up and down to see if there's any movement in them.

Alternatively just adjust the wear out - ie just lift the doors to compensate for the wear.

[GT6k]

If you slacken the three bolts that hold each hinge to the body then the hinges can slide fore and aft to adjust the door position. The body itself can droop either from having the sills replaced without proper bracing or from getting a smack on the nose which tends to bend the whole bulkhead back. I had 5 spitfires and all of them had door gaps that had closed up and could not be adjusted out until the sills were replaced and the proper door opening restored.