Gaps and Wind Noise

[79vette]

So my drivers door and tailgate haven't fit right since I bought my truck, and I have a lot of wind noise on the highway. The driver door also needs a good slam to shut it tight. Passenger door and tailgate close easily, almost like a new car. I dont know what I'm looking at here, so I'm going to describe whats going on as best I can and hopefully you guys can help me figure out what I need to do.

The door has a pretty large gap at the rear and the previous owner shimmed the striker out with a bunch of washers to make it close . The striker plastic sleeve is also gone and the pin/bolt is badly worn. I can replace the striker with a new one, but the whole door needs to come ~3/16" or more toward the back or the latch will hit the head of the bolt (hence the washers in there right now). It already rubs enough to make the door hard to close, even with the washers in there moving the bolt forward. I'm not sure how the door could have got this far forward (doesn't seem like normal sagging) and I'm not sure how to fix it.





The wind noise is mostly coming from the front of the door, level with the bottom of the window. The actual weatherstrips all look good, even on the wing window. Pics show the gap between the fully closed door and the weatherstrip. Its hard to photograph, but you can see sunlight through the gap so both inner and outer weatherstrips are failing to seal. The rubber is still fairly pliable and has no tears, so I dont know if replacing them will fix the problem. I'd just do it, but its a lot of time and money to waste if something else is the problem.





The hinge pins and bushings look ok, but there are what appear to be cracks around the hinge locations on the door. Is this something common to these trucks? Should I consider pulling the door and welding it, or do I need to find/paint a replacement door?





As for the tailgate, I dont think it leaks or makes noise so I dont really care. But it isnt sealing in the middle, and really looks like the tailgate itself is bent. That seems insane to me though, to have the tailgate bent OUT. It would have had to be hit really hard from the inside of the truck to bend it like that, but it is definitely not lining up with the tailpan in the middle. With the gate fully closed (and all body lines look good on the outside) you can see the road through a gap in the middle.





Any thoughts, on either the door or tailgate? I'm not going for perfection here; all I want is a truck that is quiet/comfortable on the highway so I can enjoy driving it to the trails. If the door is a lit