Playing off of previous experience, I decided to torque the body down completely: every single body mount bolts tightened down as tight as its suppose to be. I had to learn this lesson the hard way long ago, and I'm honestly glad I did, because it always ends up revealing something I couldn't have seen otherwise. You don't want to have your project in final paint, torque those bolts down for the first time and find out your doors won't close without scratching that shiny new paint.

The passenger side front door was hanging WAY low at the back. Like almost 2" low. I had already removed about 3" from the lower cowl to make a patch panel, and looking through the hole I was able to see that the A-pillar isn't actually welded to the lower door sill. The bottom 2" of A-pillar is literally free floating, allowing the weight of the door to push it forward, thereby causing the door to sag at the rear. Here you can see the cowl portion of the door jamb is pushed in, widening the door gap and pulling the bottom of the door in towards the driver's side.

IMG_20180203_131951404 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

Figuring I'd need more access to move the pillar brace it up properly I decided to remove more of the cowl. It'll make it easier to do the obvious repairs at the bottom that I already intended to do. To fix the pillar I put a piece of flat stock inside the channel and cinched a Ford wrench down tight, squeezing the A-pillar tight to the flat stock. Then I muscled the pillar close to where I thought it should be and hung the door to check for proper alignment. Once I was happy with how the door was fitting I hit what I could with a wire wheel and sprayed everything down with rust converter.

IMG_20180203_135811274 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr

Here's the back of the cowl portion I removed. I cleaned it up with the wire wheel and used body hammers to knock out the damage caused from the A-pillar pushing against it. I made a template for a small brace I intend to add so that I can make it on my lunch break at work on Monday. Once I have that installed, I'll patch the rust inside of there and weld the this piece back in.

IMG_20180203_140242942 by Ryan Mazingo, on Flickr