so ive decided that whatever I was going to spend on paint im going to spend on fixing this driver door. Its just one of those things, endlessly annoying.
heres the problem in more detail-
the door as a whole sits this much further out-
This does two things, way more wind noise, and the door hits the front fender all the time, causing rust and noise.
this is why-
good side for comparison-
It was overextended, we are going to try the simplest solution first, which is pull off the door, bash the A pillar with a sledge, remount the door and see if it lines up, rinse and repeat until it looks right, and then reinforce the A pillar to make sure.
The way to properly repair this says my body guy neighbor is to take the exterior A pillar skin from a donor car for the whole hinge area, and push in the interior skin to match this donor, weld in, and refinish. Problem is no donors in the yards near us, and i don't want to buy a whole parts car to cut up from somewhere there there are cars in the yards.