I had a fender bender that creased the panel on my front driver's side door, broke the door catch, and bent both of the original hinges and am in the process of replacing that assembly. I was trying to save myself the trouble of taking the fender off to access the hinge mounting holes on the body by attaching the hinges to the body first. It's proving nearly impossible to mount the door to the hinges this way because of tiny alignment discrepancies between the door, the body, and the hinge angles.

I'm at work thinking though things, and I'm starting to think that bolting the hinges to the door first and then removing the fender is the best way to save myself further headache. Can the hinge-to-body mounting bolts be accessed with the fender off?

 

Yeah I would pull off the fender and then get the door mounted aligned to the sideskirt a piller and rear door and then put the fender back on and lastly align that. Might be tricky to get the door on without removing the fender. With fender off the bolts are right there...

 

That picture makes it clear that I was just chasing a dragon trying to avoid taking the fender off (resulting in 3 hours of swearing trying to get the damn thing on). Thanks so much!

 

Awesome glad I could help! I knew I had a pic like that in my phone so glad I attached it

Now get err done and back on the road!