Obviously, to permanently cure door droop or sag you have to loosen the hinges and pull the door up a bit at the latch end, then re-tighten the hinges. If you remove the front wheel and fender liner you can see the three bolts that secure each of the two hinges, but getting a suitable tool on them is another thing, let alone getting enough torque on them. The only safe and practical thing to do is remove the front fender, and it turns out that it’s really pretty easy. The biggest issue is maintaining proper alignment; I think the hinges slid forward a bit while I was re-positioning the door because I had a slight interference between the front of the door and rear of the fender when I reinstalled the fender. I was able to cure it by putting a quarter inch thick piece of heavy closed cell foam between the door and fender, then closing the door, then tightening all the fender fasteners. After that I opened the door, removed the foam and about a 3/32" gap was maintained. Not the correct alignment method, but suitable. Everything else lined up pretty well.

Assuming you’ve already got the wheel off and fender liner out, remove the foam pieces at the rear and top. There are three bolts with 8 mm heads that go up from the front lower cowl into the fender – see yellow outlines in pic below (that’s the lower cowl with the fender removed). Pull the hose out of the washer reservoir and rotate it out of the way (have a bucket ready). You’ll also need to remove the marker light (simple push-out) to get to the center bolt.
Remove the two 10 mm nuts that hold a bracket – see the magenta outline in pic above. The headlight assembly is right next to these and the only way I could get to them was with a ratcheting 10 mm box end wrench, although it may be more feasible to undo the other end of the bracket – I didn’t explore that possibility. Now remove four bolts with 10 mm heads at the rear. Two are visible looking straight back toward the door – see the magenta outlines in the pic below (the yellow outlines show the door hinge bolts). You’ll want a good 15 to 20 inches of extensions for those so you can get the ratchet/power drill out where it’s easily cranked.


Now remove the two lower rear bolts with 10 mm heads – see the yellow outlines in the pic below (looking down from above with fender removed). The front-most one is easily visible with the fender installed; the other is behind the vent purge valve stuff and you’ll probably have to do that by feel using a 10” to 12” extension and a ratchet. No doubt you’ll want to remove the marker light there as well.


Now you have to remove the trim cowl from under the wiper blades so you can get to the rear-most fender bolt on top - all this for one lousy bolt! Remove six oval screw covers and the Phillips head screws themselves, plus one at each front corner, then remove the wiper nut caps (sharp blade to get under them, then lift), disconnect the washer rubber hose for each wiper, remove the wiper nuts and then the wiper arms (a faucet handle puller works OK on stuck ones, otherwise you can usually get them to release by rocking the wiper assembly back and forth a bit). Remove the cowl carefully, disconnecting the bottom washer hose in the process.

Remove all the bolts (10 mm heads) along the top of the fender and it’s ready to lift off, although some prying on the brackets at the front in the wheel well will probably be required to get the studs to disengage, then the fender lifts off. You can have the fender off in an hour, easy.

Once the fender’s out of the way you can have your way with the door hinge bolts. I used a half inch drive ratchet and 10 mm socket – they are pretty bloody tight. It’s nice to have someone on the wrench while you adjust the door, but I got mine adjusted solo (with aforementioned alignment issue). You may also have to loosen the striker plate and move it up a bit too. A couple of times when working on the door I’ve gotten the latch in the closed position with the door open – not sure how that happens, but it can. If so, just use a screwdriver crosswise as a bar to push it back open.

Re-installation is pretty straightforward once you lever the front studs into the bracket holes. When re-installing the windshield cowl don’t forget to connect the rubber drain pipe to each end of the cowl and secure the rubber strap to hold them in place.