Driver side upper door hinge?
- Thread starter Hank Tank
- Start date
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My pins were worn out.
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
So I answered my own question about pushing out the pins. Played around with the hinge in a vice and you can clamp it in a vice and tap the pin out with a drift punch. You need to be very patient as it didn't want to budge at first. Several sharp blows with the ball peen though and it started to move.
In deference to @J Mack 's answer about his pins, I can visually see some erosion of mine at the top and bottom. I put the calipers to them though and have almost convinced myself to reuse the pins...or at least this one pin. I need to get all the hinges back from the shop once he takes the doors off. So the bottom wear was a tad more than the top. Looks like it's about 7.874mm OD or about 0.125mm less than the 8mm McMaster Carr bushing ID. That is just under 5 thousandths of an inch which I think would still be pretty tight.
Since this is a spare hinge I'm playing with, I might order a pair of the bushings and see what I think after putting it together. I probably need to get a drill press vise as well to drill the hinge out to 11mm. Another tool that's been on my list for a while.
In deference to @J Mack 's answer about his pins, I can visually see some erosion of mine at the top and bottom. I put the calipers to them though and have almost convinced myself to reuse the pins...or at least this one pin. I need to get all the hinges back from the shop once he takes the doors off. So the bottom wear was a tad more than the top. Looks like it's about 7.874mm OD or about 0.125mm less than the 8mm McMaster Carr bushing ID. That is just under 5 thousandths of an inch which I think would still be pretty tight.
Since this is a spare hinge I'm playing with, I might order a pair of the bushings and see what I think after putting it together. I probably need to get a drill press vise as well to drill the hinge out to 11mm. Another tool that's been on my list for a while.
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
I'm almost getting to the point of waiting on others on my '77 frame off so I'm starting to tackle small projects including these hinges. Long story short, I installed the bushings that @J Mack recommended and reused the pin on the spare hinge (shown above). I frankly couldn't be happier with the results. There is zero lateral movement in the hinge and although it's very tight to move by hand, the hinge moves very smoothly.
At the risk of embarrassing myself, given the fact that I have a fraction of the machinist skills or tools for that matter of most of you guys, I will attempt to show how I did the installation. I bought a couple of small and relatively cheap Wilton low profile drill press vises and used the 6" one for this job. I started with an 8mm drill bit and used that to align the hinge part with the drill press. There was some crud in the middle of the hinge (between where the bushings were) so I had to play with things to get the bit all the way through. In fact, I got it "aligned" at the top and turned the press on to get through the bit of crud and then went back to manual mode.
Once the bit was all the way through, I clamped the vise down with the bit still in the hinge and then switched to the 11mm bit. I carefully drilled out the hole to 11mm. It appeared to be dead center to me and frankly it didn't remove that much material.
I then pressed the bushings into each end. I then discovered that they are just a smidge too prone for the hinge to go back together so I carefully took a little material off each bushing using the flat side of the smoothest of the two grinding wheels on my pedestal grinder. I don't know what grit the wheel is but it is very smooth and left no marks whatsoever in the bushings. I made sure to leave enough material that it was still difficult to get the parts together. It didn't take much at all and I didn't measure what I removed but it was just this side of nothing.
I then tapped the pin back in from the bottom and set it using a drift punch.
I'm going to get Kelly to send all my hinges back so that I can get them all done and sent back to him.
At the risk of embarrassing myself, given the fact that I have a fraction of the machinist skills or tools for that matter of most of you guys, I will attempt to show how I did the installation. I bought a couple of small and relatively cheap Wilton low profile drill press vises and used the 6" one for this job. I started with an 8mm drill bit and used that to align the hinge part with the drill press. There was some crud in the middle of the hinge (between where the bushings were) so I had to play with things to get the bit all the way through. In fact, I got it "aligned" at the top and turned the press on to get through the bit of crud and then went back to manual mode.
Once the bit was all the way through, I clamped the vise down with the bit still in the hinge and then switched to the 11mm bit. I carefully drilled out the hole to 11mm. It appeared to be dead center to me and frankly it didn't remove that much material.
I then pressed the bushings into each end. I then discovered that they are just a smidge too prone for the hinge to go back together so I carefully took a little material off each bushing using the flat side of the smoothest of the two grinding wheels on my pedestal grinder. I don't know what grit the wheel is but it is very smooth and left no marks whatsoever in the bushings. I made sure to leave enough material that it was still difficult to get the parts together. It didn't take much at all and I didn't measure what I removed but it was just this side of nothing.
I then tapped the pin back in from the bottom and set it using a drift punch.
I'm going to get Kelly to send all my hinges back so that I can get them all done and sent back to him.
Last edited:
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
I was just doing some cleaning in the shop and realized that I left out one step. Before I reinserted the pin I put it in a drill motor and cleaned it up using some emory cloth. Not sure that's imperative to do but the pin was a little rough to the touch before I polished it up.
RUSH55
SILVER Star
