A-series

I've searched for this but didn't get anywhere so...

The driver's side door on my car sags ever so slightly when open and so not only does it not want to close very easily (compared to other 3 doors) but on two occasions when it was really cold out, and the rubber seal gets stiffer, the door came open unexpectedly, just enough for the light to come on. Once while driving and the other when the car was parked so now I have the interior light switched off for fear that the door might come open during the night and drain the battery.
I'm convinced if I could adjust/tighten the hinges it would fix the problem but I don't know how to do it. It looks more complex than I was expecting.
Is there a walkthrough on this or pictures showing what to adjust that anyone knows about? I'd really appreciate it.
It's a 5th gen civic if that helps.

m735is

The door hinge is one problem. You can either replace it with one from a used car or buy a new one. Or you can swap your back door hinge up to the front since it's used less.
That may fix the alignment and keep the door closed. Or the inside of your door is getting oxidized on the moving parts. Is your handle hard to pull out and return? If so, some well placed lube may free it up, otherwise you may have to replace the handle.
Getting the doors back on and lined up can be a pain (especially alone), but tightening the hinge bolts so that they just barely move will allow you to line it up, then carefully open the door and tighten them down. I use pin stripe tape to mark a line down the doors, then remove it when done.

I know on mine I've replaced all of the handles at least once, drivers three times, and two of them twice. The crap gets in there and makes the handles really rusty.

A-series

All of my handles open and close smoothly but that's because after fixing three of them with epoxy resin (one had cracked and the other two mechanisms just popped out of the plastic hole) I lubed them up real good so it wouldn't happen again.
I was under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that you could tighten the bolt that holds the two pieces of the hinge together, the bolt or pin in the middle where the hinge actually rotates. That's how someone explained it to me a while ago anyway.
Assuming you're right though I think I might just switch it with the one from the rear door like you suggested. Is it necessary to remove the front fender to remove and replace that hinge though?(I hope not)
Thanks for the input.

m735is

You may be able to just buy the pin and whatever bushings it rides on, but I had extra hinges around, so I went that route. No, the fender doesn't have to come off.


Edit 12/12/06: I just tried to do this and it DOES NOT work. I don't know what I was remembering, but it wasn't doing this. The pins can be taken out, but they aren't the same length either. Now it's worse than when I started, so it looks like new or used are on order.
Big apology if you tried to do this.