Fix Slamming Doors - Striker Door Latch Repair

[bucket]

So pursuant to this same issue and fix, where the door latch rubs the striker (pic below), I presume this is just a little sag in the door over time. Drivers side is always worse than passenger for obvious reasons.
Is the proper way to fix to shim the door back “up” a little? Which requires removing the fender.
Both of my trucks are like this and probably every other one out there. But my door pins are not sloppy or worn out. Just the grinding every time hurts the brain…
Has anyone just lowered the striker a bit? Always hate to mess with good closing relatively straight doors.

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In your case, I would not adjust the striker down at all. When the door drags on it, the striker raises the door up a bit. I'm assuming you have nice door gaps right now. So if you adjust the striker, it will throw off your door gap.

So since your hinges are not sloppy, what has happened is your doors are actually tweaked a bit in the hinge mounting area. It's very common. There are three different ways to fix it:

1- Simply tweak the door back to where it belongs. There are different methods of doing this, but I don't recommend it because the door will just sag back down in short order.

2- Remove the fender and adjust the lower hinge rearward, to kick the door back up where it belongs.

3- Install body shims between the door and lower hinge to kick the door back up. While not being an area that the factory ever installed shims, it's simple and it works well.

One other note. A properly adjusted door will not rely on the striker to make it line up in the door opening. The easiest way to get a door lined up in the opening is to have the striker removed while the door is being adjusted. When the door is adjusted and has proper gaps, then install the striker so the door can latch. The striker is not an alignment device, it is only a latching device.

 

[Grit dog]

@bucket
You described it perfectly and in perfect detail.
Correct. Door gaps are “good” not show car good but good as any 40-50 year old car that rolled off the line.
Hinges/pins are tight, no slop, and doors close fine but dragging a bit. Drivers side worse than passenger for obvious reasons on both trucks.
Agree, just gradual over time slight tweaking of the hinges.
#3 is the solution I did not consider. But will do exactly what is needed. Looking forward to 4 perfectly closing doors as soon as Scamazon delivers me a pack of body shims!
Thanks

 

[hey mister]

Holy moly!!
That PEX tube trick worked!!
Used an exacto razor saw.
It qas a bit of a trick to get them on. Used very long needle nose plyers to open the tubing up.
At the first close, the truck muttered something under it's exhsust...couldn't quite make it out...sounded like, "took ya long enuf.."

 

[YakkoWarner]

Holy moly!!
That PEX tube trick worked!!
Used an exacto razor saw.
It qas a bit of a trick to get them on. Used very long needle nose plyers to open the tubing up.
At the first close, the truck muttered something under it's exhsust...couldn't quite make it out...sounded like, "took ya long enuf.."

My friend Dave did all 4 doors on my Suburban that way one day - the 1st one he actually went through the process of removing the striker, heating the PEX slightly to get it to slide on and then reassemble. After 2-3 hours of that he said to <---> with it and just did the lenghtwise cut and popped the other 3 on in about 10 minutes. All 4 doors close with no more than 2 fingers of pressure, no rattling and the PEX has held up for 2 years at this point.

 

[Grit dog]

In your case, I would not adjust the striker down at all. When the door drags on it, the striker raises the door up a bit. I'm assuming you have nice door gaps right now. So if you adjust the striker, it will throw off your door gap.

So since your hinges are not sloppy, what has happened is your doors are actually tweaked a bit in the hinge mounting area. It's very common. There are three different ways to fix it:

1- Simply tweak the door back to where it belongs. There are different methods of doing this, but I don't recommend it because the door will just sag back down in short order.

2- Remove the fender and adjust the lower hinge rearward, to kick the door back up where it belongs.

3- Install body shims between the door and lower hinge to kick the door back up. While not being an area that the factory ever installed shims, it's simple and it works well.

One other note. A properly adjusted door will not rely on the striker to make it line up in the door opening. The easiest way to get a door lined up in the opening is to have the striker removed while the door is being adjusted. When the door is adjusted and has proper gaps, then install the striker so the door can latch. The striker is not an alignment device, it is only a latching device.

To close the loop, I shimmed all the squarebody bottom door hinges on both trucks. The passenger doors sound and close as good or better than new. The drivers doors also close very easily as well with no drag on the striker. Didn’t take much shimming. Don’t remember because it was months ago, but maybe 1/32” on the drivers doors.

Since you have years and years of experience with squares, the drivers side latches in both the 77 and 86, while they work perfectly are just way “louder” than the passenger (less wear n tear obviously). Passenger doors are very solid, sound like a new car. Drivers are a louder click almost metallic sounding. I’m not tearing apart perfectly smooth door latches at this point but wonder if you know what’s worn in them? Seems kind like the strikers where a plastic washer or something is gone allowing metal on metal.
Ideas?

 

[bucket]

To close the loop, I shimmed all the squarebody bottom door hinges on both trucks. The passenger doors sound and close as good or better than new. The drivers doors also close very easily as well with no drag on the striker. Didn’t take much shimming. Don’t remember because it was months ago, but maybe 1/32” on the drivers doors.

Since you have years and years of experience with squares, the drivers side latches in both the 77 and 86, while they work perfectly are just way “louder” than the passenger (less wear n tear obviously). Passenger doors are very solid, sound like a new car. Drivers are a louder click almost metallic sounding. I’m not tearing apart perfectly smooth door latches at this point but wonder if you know what’s worn in them? Seems kind like the strikers where a plastic washer or something is gone allowing metal on metal.
Ideas?

Yeah, if there's no plastic bushing, they will make a little more noise and the strikers also need to be adjusted in, to make up for it. So if your left doors close all the way now, the strikers will maybe need adjusted out a little bit, after adding new bushings or replacing with pex, like described in this thread.

 

[84GMCSierra]

I'm using the blue pex tubing. Got tons of it from work as we use it for the bars on our excursion train. When we get any cars, I get all I need as it gets thrown away anyways

 

[Scott91370]

I finally asked my plumber friend for a piece of pex. WOW! So easy to close the doors now!

 

[1977banana]

Use blue pex. it comes in red and blue

 

[Scott91370]

I used gray. Didn't like the blue or especially red on my truck.

 

[Tonimus]

Where has this been my whole life? For $3.21 (they only had 5’ sticks) I was able to fix all four door in my suburban in like 3 minutes. Now I’m going to need new weatherstripping for the drivers door. But it closes so much better.