My driver's door drops down slightly when opening. It shuts OK with a hard pull, but I was thinking about changing the hinges.
I've noticed that you can buy oversized hinge pins. Has anybody done this? Or do you reckon that buying new or re-conditioned hinges is the way to go?
New pins are only a quid. I wonder if fitting them would be a straightforward job..............
EASY... I did this during my rebuild. When you receive the over-
size pins it gives you the size of drill to put through the hinges.
BEFORE YOU REMOVE THEM MARK ROUND THEIR POSITIONS
WITH A PENCIL. The hinge pins knock out UPWARDS. My hinges
are still tight after eleven years!! Any problems obtaining the parts
try 'Minor Developments Ltd' on 01562 747718. ( you need a
0.328" drill). This is assuming that the fact that your doors drop
is not due to a badly rusted 'A' post.
Many suppliers quote .328 inch drill bit which is a sort of mess between metric and imperial. What you really need is a 21/64 inch bit. The theory of knocking out the old pin sounds fine. I've managed it once, but on every other hinge (around 8 or 9) I've had to drill out the entire old pin. It's essential to use a pillar drill and get the hinge absolutely vertical in the vice. Start with a small diameter drill and work up to gradually drill out the whole pin. Of course, if the old one does push out then the job is easy.
With the old pin out, drill the hinge to 21/64 and just drive in the new pin. Despite marking the position of the hinge, you might still find it necessary to adjust the door fit after fitting new pins.
Another good tip is to get an old hinge bolt, cut off the head, and thread it into the door pillar AFTER removing the first bolt in each hinge, but BEFORE removing all of them. This (a) provides somewhere to hang the door when refitting, and (b) stops the plate dropping down inside the A-post if the metal retainer has rusted away. It's much easier than cutting and welding to retreive the plate !
