My drivers door had been difficult to shut lately. The back of the door had dropped about 1/8" to 3/16 of an inch which is a clear indicator of worn door hinges. These are reproduction hinges that have only been in use for 6 summer seasons (5500 miles).
To fix it, I thought I'd go with a greasable bushing kit but I didn't get my order in early enough to meet my schedule. I ended up ordering bushings and pins from MacMaster Carr since I usually get parts in a day or two from them. The pins where the wrong length so I only used the bushings. I got two different types of bushings. The SAE 863 bronze bushings were 92 cents each and the Alloy 932(SAE 660)Bronze bushings (darker) were $4.38 each. I ended up using the Alloy/Bronze bushings since they are a much tougher material. The bushings supplied with the repro hinges were brass. I'm not sure why they used brass, but not a very good material for this purpose IMO (too soft).
Anyway this pic shows the new bushings along with one of the worn out repro brass bushings.
Since getting at the pillar is a royal pain with the fender installed, I decided to rebuild the hinges while still installed on the pillar. We removed the door from the hinge with the expectation that when it goes back on, we should only need to adjust the overall door height and depth. Fore and aft position should not change. It worked well as it only took about 20 minute to get the door back close to where it was originally.
With the door removed, I drilled out the flange of the top pin, Then tapped it out with a ball peen hammer and punch. The bottom one had limited access so I had to grind the head off first, then punched the pin out.
With the hinge apart, I ran a piece of rod through the top hinge to see if it aligned perfectly to the bottom hinge. It was off about 3/16" which tells me the top hinges was tweeked some and seeing side loads that it should not see. I don't know if this is because of poorly machined hinges or if there is a problem with my A pillar. I suspect the hinges as there is no sign of damage to the pillar.
I tried to minimize that effect when enlarging the the holes to 1/2" diameter to fit the new bushings, it's better but not perfect.
The bushings were slightly oversize and pressed in nicely with a c clamp. I inserted the pin pictured above to act as an axial alignment guide.
In my haste, I forgot to add the sleeve which is used to contain the grease inside the hinge. I had to press them back out, fit the brass tubing and repress the bushings.
The flanges of the new bushings are thicker. I could have ground them down some, but there was enough room in the hinges to bend the mating sections slightly and keep the bushings as supplied. I had to widen the gap on the door side of the hinge, and squeeze the pillar side. Overall just needed another 1/16" or so. The hinges are mild steel so they were persuaded rather easily with a threaded rod and a couple of nuts acting as a compresser / expander. I did heat the lower hinge since it was being a little stubborn on the squeeze.
For the door side of the hinge I drilled the pin hole out to 3/8". For the pin I ended up using some stainless steel bolts. A 3" long bold could work, but then there would be threads in the bushed area and I did not want that. I used something like a 4" bolt but the shank portion was too long, so I had to then use a 3/8-16 die and cut another 3 or 4 threads. I also trimmed the length so the bolt would just protrude through the nylock nut.
I had originally intended on drilling the center of the bolts to add a grease fittings but I broke the cheap HF drill bit and instead just figured what I had done is already 10X better so I just packed the pin and bushings with a lot of grease and assembled the hinges.
With the pin/bolt installed, I didn't want it to spin freely, so I welded a nylock nut on the bottom of the hinge. Then on the top side, I took some stainless fender washers and trimmed them so that they could be bent to lock the head of the bolt to the hinge. This way, the pin will always be forced to rotate with the bushing. I think the other bushings wore down because once they started to floating in the anchor hole, they continued to wear on both the inner and outer surface, causing them to wear a lot faster.
The next fix is unrelated to the door hinges, but a good time to address... When my car was originally painted, I got a bit of a cost break because I had already painted the inner doors, hood and trunk. I painted them with Dupont Chromabase Highland Green. Since the painter only shot Spies Hekker, he couldn't get the actual highland green code and ended with a close match which was Land Rover's Ardeness Effect. I did not learn this until about 2 years later. The under hood and trunk lid doesn't really bother me as it really isn't as noticible, but the doors have always looked a bit off, so while the door was off, I touched up some chips on the door edges, and fixed a couple of other oversights, then resprayed the door side of the jam with the Spies Hekker base and Matrix clear. the color looks much nicer in person than it does in pictures.
It sucks having to do things twice between the hinges and the color, but the door shuts great again and to me it looks much better.
To fix it, I thought I'd go with a greasable bushing kit but I didn't get my order in early enough to meet my schedule. I ended up ordering bushings and pins from MacMaster Carr since I usually get parts in a day or two from them. The pins where the wrong length so I only used the bushings. I got two different types of bushings. The SAE 863 bronze bushings were 92 cents each and the Alloy 932(SAE 660)Bronze bushings (darker) were $4.38 each. I ended up using the Alloy/Bronze bushings since they are a much tougher material. The bushings supplied with the repro hinges were brass. I'm not sure why they used brass, but not a very good material for this purpose IMO (too soft).
Anyway this pic shows the new bushings along with one of the worn out repro brass bushings.
Since getting at the pillar is a royal pain with the fender installed, I decided to rebuild the hinges while still installed on the pillar. We removed the door from the hinge with the expectation that when it goes back on, we should only need to adjust the overall door height and depth. Fore and aft position should not change. It worked well as it only took about 20 minute to get the door back close to where it was originally.
With the door removed, I drilled out the flange of the top pin, Then tapped it out with a ball peen hammer and punch. The bottom one had limited access so I had to grind the head off first, then punched the pin out.
With the hinge apart, I ran a piece of rod through the top hinge to see if it aligned perfectly to the bottom hinge. It was off about 3/16" which tells me the top hinges was tweeked some and seeing side loads that it should not see. I don't know if this is because of poorly machined hinges or if there is a problem with my A pillar. I suspect the hinges as there is no sign of damage to the pillar.
I tried to minimize that effect when enlarging the the holes to 1/2" diameter to fit the new bushings, it's better but not perfect.
The bushings were slightly oversize and pressed in nicely with a c clamp. I inserted the pin pictured above to act as an axial alignment guide.
In my haste, I forgot to add the sleeve which is used to contain the grease inside the hinge. I had to press them back out, fit the brass tubing and repress the bushings.
The flanges of the new bushings are thicker. I could have ground them down some, but there was enough room in the hinges to bend the mating sections slightly and keep the bushings as supplied. I had to widen the gap on the door side of the hinge, and squeeze the pillar side. Overall just needed another 1/16" or so. The hinges are mild steel so they were persuaded rather easily with a threaded rod and a couple of nuts acting as a compresser / expander. I did heat the lower hinge since it was being a little stubborn on the squeeze.
For the door side of the hinge I drilled the pin hole out to 3/8". For the pin I ended up using some stainless steel bolts. A 3" long bold could work, but then there would be threads in the bushed area and I did not want that. I used something like a 4" bolt but the shank portion was too long, so I had to then use a 3/8-16 die and cut another 3 or 4 threads. I also trimmed the length so the bolt would just protrude through the nylock nut.
I had originally intended on drilling the center of the bolts to add a grease fittings but I broke the cheap HF drill bit and instead just figured what I had done is already 10X better so I just packed the pin and bushings with a lot of grease and assembled the hinges.
With the pin/bolt installed, I didn't want it to spin freely, so I welded a nylock nut on the bottom of the hinge. Then on the top side, I took some stainless fender washers and trimmed them so that they could be bent to lock the head of the bolt to the hinge. This way, the pin will always be forced to rotate with the bushing. I think the other bushings wore down because once they started to floating in the anchor hole, they continued to wear on both the inner and outer surface, causing them to wear a lot faster.
The next fix is unrelated to the door hinges, but a good time to address... When my car was originally painted, I got a bit of a cost break because I had already painted the inner doors, hood and trunk. I painted them with Dupont Chromabase Highland Green. Since the painter only shot Spies Hekker, he couldn't get the actual highland green code and ended with a close match which was Land Rover's Ardeness Effect. I did not learn this until about 2 years later. The under hood and trunk lid doesn't really bother me as it really isn't as noticible, but the doors have always looked a bit off, so while the door was off, I touched up some chips on the door edges, and fixed a couple of other oversights, then resprayed the door side of the jam with the Spies Hekker base and Matrix clear. the color looks much nicer in person than it does in pictures.
It sucks having to do things twice between the hinges and the color, but the door shuts great again and to me it looks much better.
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