1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

[Kenny C.]

Best Regards
Kenny

[Kenny C.]

Re: 1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

Really? No one out there has struggled with this issue?

[Michael D.]

Re: 1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

Struggled? Not really, but I may have gotten lucky. If memory serves, my '68 has two shims at each mount (possibly three).

Good luck.

[Jack H.]

Re: 1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

There are individual adjustments for aligning the wiper door. You should find these covered in your copy of the Chassis Service Manual...

Note, the adjustment(s) to align the rear of the wiper door to its final rest position against the windshield and its reveal moldings consist of two (RH and LH) screws with stop nuts installed in the rear corners of the wiper door. They're pretty darn tricky to gain access to with the wiper door installed on the car, but it CAN be done, mon!

[Rich P.]

Re: 1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

Kenny,

Too many things could be wrong so I'll just touch on a few to help guide you along.
First you can have as many shims that will still allow you to put the cups on as well as catch the nuts. Also dont forget to also shim the actuator housing mount as well they originally used special shim for that but you can easily make it your self. next when you adjust the side to side make sure the rear mout to the windshield frame is lossend up also to allow shifting of the entire hige.

Next as far as the rear trim lining up with the trim on the fenders you can move both the wiper door trim and fender trim for final adjustment. Don't forget that the rear height adjustment on the door will also affect how far back the door will seat against the windshield therfore afecting the alignment of the rear trim piece on the door in relation to the fender trim.

Thats just a start. Hope this helps, Rich.

[Edward J.]

Re: 1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

Ken, I took my grill and wiper door off to paint car, had no problems with the re-assy. is it possiable that the hood adjustment may need tweeked.or maybe the nose was off and align. may be off a little.

[Chuck S.]

Re: 1969 Wiper Door Alignment Help

Kenny, I'm not sure why you're having a problem with this...all of the components are adjustable vertically and horizontally with slotted holes. It's a trial and error process until you have it figured out. You'll probably have to go through the process a half dozen times to get it right.

As Jack said, the extension of the door mechanism is set by stop screws that are adjustable. But, as you change the extension of the door mechanism, you will have to adjust the vertical position of the mechanism to get the door height to match the fenders. Once you have the extension of the mechanism, and mechanism height, like you want it, you have to shim the plenum grill ends vertically to be flush with the fenders. In my experience, there are generally few to no shims under the plenum grill.

Rick is talking about the special shaped shims used at the mechanism mounting bracket behind the actuator. Two shims at each mounting bracket sounds about right. The fiberglass firewall bulkhead is somewhat flexible, and will accept some shim mismatch, but not a lot. Fine tuning the number of shims to correct tapered gaps is fine...e.g. three at the passenger side bracket and actuator location bracket, two at the driver side inboard bracket (support for grill only), and two at the driver side bracket. Be careful with this though; if you put the mechanism in a bind it may not work freely, and it's easily broken.

Once you have the door extending almost to the windshield, the only option you have with the gaps is to equalize the gaps between the hood, the grill, and the door using the slotted screw holes in the grill...what you see is what you get, but it should be close to factory acceptable gap tolerances.