Pully Police

I tried to search for a thread / how-to on this but came up with nothing.

Does anyone here know the proper procedure for aligning / rehanging the doors on the cobalt coupes? My drivers door is a bit off and I need to move it back about 1/4 inch in order to align my fenders, front bumper, and hood. My panel gaps are off from the factory and I want to fix them up.

Thankls for any information you can provide!!

-P

PlaysWitCars

take off your fenders and loosen the bolts on the hinges against the body of the car and see if you can adjust them the way you want.....thats how i adjust my lambos.

*tape up the door to avoid scratches

Pully Police

Thanks!

SSdan

Hey Jeff, any idea how to re align the fender?

I have about a 1/2" gap on the driver side vs the 1/4" on the passenger side and it really pisses me off!

PlaysWitCars

just loosen the bolts on the fender and just play around with it.....thats about all i can tell you

SSdan

Lol figured as much, any hidden bolts possibly?

Pully Police

Well, punch me in the nuts....

Yesterday I decided to fix my panel gaps. GM build quality sucks ass. My 2002 jetta had better panel fit than even the new Caddy CTS (I know because I was lloking at panel gaps on 3 different ones at my dealer in the city - they were all sub par on close inspection)...anyways...

I take off the headlight, front fascia, both front fenders, both fenderwells, and the hood. I also make a rig so I can jack my drivers side door and adjust it back and forth to get the gaps and clearances correct. So I get the drivers door where I want it and preload the door (jack it up a few mm extra) before tightening the bolts. I also had to loosen and raise the door catch on the frame. Result is that the door closes as slick as snot.

Next is to get the fenders lined up - for that, you need to have the hood on and aligned. I used a rigid tape measure and measured diagonally from the corner of the hood to the corner of the windshied on both sides. A little fiddling, and we are golden.

Getting the fenders true is almost impossible. There are 8 bolts scattered all over the place and you have to bend the tabs on some sopts so that the curves and gaps will line up with the door. there is also an adjustable mount on each side at the front - you will need to play with these while opening and closing the hood to make sure that the gaps are even on both sides. Each fender took about an hour or so of messing around to get them poker straight. You will have to find reference points on both sides to ensure that you dont mount one fender higher than the other. Snug down all the bolts and we are good, so far everything is totally straight and even.

On to the fascia...my facsia was sagging down a bit on the drivers side and the gaps in my headlights were all messed up. I looked on the metal bumper and loosened the 6 bolts that hold it on. There is not much play to this and you cant adjust it up or down more than a few mm. I adjusted it and measured a crapload of times to make sure everything was on the money......

....now for the interesting discovery. With everything totally straight, measured, remeasured, and then measured again, gaps checked and bumper subframe good to go....I put the fascia on and started to fasten the aligning bolts in each fender - it went on like butter....BUT the sag in the drivers side was still there...albeit WAY better than what it was..but ti was still there. I pulled it off and checked everything again - all straight. Threw it on again...and noticed that the drivers side just does not want to sit up like it should....looked at the foam in the bumper and it looks like GM shaved one side down a bit, causing it to slump. I had a good chunk of automotive foam laying around, so I cut a "shim" and remounted the fascia - PERFECT FIT!

THe headlight gaps are hugely improved - not perfect due to the fact that one of my lights has a ton of that grey sealing **** in it which actually makes the plastic cover stick out further than the other one. It is pretty minor and you cant even notice unless you bend down and look right close up.

Soo...because the "driver door installer guy" on the cobalt assembly line fucked up, the drivers side fender was mounted slightly forward - which causes the fascia to push forward and slump down - which caused the headlights to look like a 3 year old mounted them. All fixed now!!

Sorry...no pics...but take my word - doing this sucks ass...but my SS/SC doesn't look like it has downsyndrome anymore (no offense)

OrngBalt

Damn dude.... there shoulda been pics and pics galore... guys would be praising you and offering bj's from their g.f's to have a how to on all this.

HatedCobalt

we need a good how to for all this.

Pully Police

I will work on one. My wife has the camera with her and she is working out of town for the week...otherwise I would have taken pics...but with her gone, it is the only time I could bring car parts in the house and store them in various places in the kitchen and living room

I can describe almost everything I did without photos - once you find all the bolts and fastners - everything comes *off* quite nicely

I will have one up within a week.

OrngBalt

I am extremely interested because I need to fix my hood. it no longer sits flush and the dealer keeps telling me I closed it on something.

Pully Police

Holy crap!

Take a few photos of your:
- door/fender gap
- hood/bumper gap
- snap a pic of your hood hinge with the hood open.

I may be able to help you out.

OrngBalt

I will this afternoon. there isnt any other problem area tho. Nothing else has changed. I opened it one day and when I closed it... it stayed open

I think something is just loose. Cuz when you close it its open about 1.5" but with a gentle push it goes down to about .5"

Pully Police

Tell you what I will do...

I will get a camera from work and take off the front bumper again. I will shoot some photos of the bolt locations for the fender and explain how to take them off and realign them.

I JUST found out that the bumper beam has no adjustment room...and that you actually have to take it off and elongate the holes with a drill to allow you to raise / lower it. Soooo..I will do that tonight, and even out my foam shim that I put in. Hopefully this will even out the gaps even further on my headlights.

I will have something up soon.

Pully Police

I have a how-to submitted - still no pics but I tried to be as detailed as I could. Bug the mods if you want it up quickly

OrngBalt

Could you maybe send me something about fixing the hood since you took it off during your re-align.

Thanks

Pully Police

Can you post a few pics of the hood open and get some close ups of the hinge? YOur problem does not look like anything to do with where the hood mounts to the hinge. It looks like there is an issue with where your hinge mounts to the frame. The only other thing that could cause your hood to pop open like would be if the mounting bolts holding the hood onto the hinge were both missing and the hood strut is pressing up and the hood.

Once you upload a few pics, I will be able to help you out further.