Has anyone tried to replace the upper hinge "rivots" with replacements from GM? I know that TDS and www.andyz28.com have expensive replacements, but there has to be a fix for a worn upper hinge for less than $78 per side.

Some of us drive these cars occasionally and only on nice days, so its not like the door would be opened that often.

 

The upper hinge is GM part# 12392848 and is the same for both doors. Retail on that repair hinge is higher than $75. Also using GM's hinge repair kit requires roughly double the labor to install than using the kit I sell. Here's why:

Here is the GM solution to replacing the worn out upper door hinge.

1. Completely remove the door from the vehicle. (If you have power door locks, power windows or power mirrors you have to un-wire them).
2. Scribe the location of the upper hinge where it attaches to the door.
3. Guess at the location of the welds. Then drill them out from the outside of the door with a ½" drill. A slight amount of weld may still retain the hinge to the panel. If so, drive a chisel between the panel and the hinge to separate the hinge from the panel.
4. Once the hinge has been removed. Locate the replacement hinge on the door. Now drill 4 entirely different holes to BOLT the new hinge to the door with a threaded reinforcing plate inside the door. (They don't mention it, but it would be a good idea to weld up these holes and grind it flush
before you bolt the new hinge on because you will notice that the area where the hinge attaches to the door now looks like Swiss cheese).
5. The original hinge is attached to the body with 3 bolts, but the replacement hinge has only 2. So you must use a piece of paper and a pencil to poke a hole through the paper to locate the hole and transfer it to the new hinge. (This is the procedure outlined in 10-5-20 Doors of the GM service manual).
6. Reinstall the door back onto the car.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

I'm not talking about rmoving the entire hinge from the door. I'm talking about replacing the stock rivots that are in there with the GM replacement pins.

 

GM doesn't supply just new pins and bushings. Until Andy invented this alternate hinge pin repair solution you had to replace the entire upper hinge with the GM repair upper hinge. At one time there was a cheap knock-off of Andy's kit being sold on eBay by someone from Canada. If you need me to elaborate why that kit is JUNK let me know. Bottom-line, you have only two real solutions for repairing your upper hinge. Now that the SEARCH feature is working again you can find a ton of info on this site.

Good luck,

Lon

 

I did the search several times, and was overwhelmed with the amount of posts that are basically reduntant, most of them ending with post from Lonsal. If this was the only repair i was doing I wouldn't care about a $78 hinge repair, but when I'm tackling and entire interior and exterior GTA restoration, I have to prioritize and justify my spending.

 

Trust someone on these boards please. $150 for two brand new closing doors is the best investment i've ever put into my firebird. Once the doors start sagging the paint on my rocker panel got scraped off on both sides. Also the glass can come in contact with the sail panel in extreme cases and scratch the paint. That cost a lot of money to fix the paint. Then the weatherstrip never seals correctly allowing lots of road noise. Constantly slamming the door everyday to get the door to close right is a major annoyance. Wow if this kit had been out years ago!!!

 

If you are working on restoring the interior you obviously care about the car so why not invest in the door hinges? If you are restoring and preserving it, you should know how important the doors are to the structural integrity to these cars. Expensive it not a word to use here, 150 dollars is expensive for a pound of steak but not quality pieces like you are talking about here. I too have a gta of course and know that if you are restoring one that spending 150 on door hinges is one of the cheaper things you will buy.

 

Let me add - "restoring on a budget"

 

Everyone has a budget, including me, it just varies how big of a budget it is. If you are prioritizing though, I would put those near the top, they are important.

 

Just to clarify, The upper hinge is the only one requiring replace ment to cure sagging doors. And the lower hinge (with a 4-5 inch bolt) i can use stock.

Or should this bolt be replaced too.

 

The door pin replacements that Lon sells has got to be the best repair piece to fix the upper hinges. I had a door that was sagging terribly put the new pins in the upper hinge and now the door shuts just like it was brand new again.

The rivets in the top hinge are like a rivet in a steel building, it is put in and hammered down flat to keep it in place, even if you could replace it, there would be no way to hammer the pin down to flatten it out.

It was the best $75 I spent.

And if you are doing a complete restore of a GTA on a 'budget' then it will be a long time before it is done, I have a GTA I'm restoring and looking at having probably 4-5 grand in it by the time I'm done.

 

+ 1 for Lon. Best thing I ever bought!

 

Like you I'm on a budget. I don't like spending large amounts of money on small items. In this case I did a lot of searching for a alternative and came up with this kit being the best value for the time and work involved. A new upper hinge is expensive and a lot of trouble to install. I finally bought a hinge pin set from Lon and was very pleased with the quality of the parts, and the ease with which I fixed my driver side door. Works just like new now.

My priority list was to get everything working the way it was meant to, then worry about appearance. I'm driving mine everyday so it was a higher priority for me. It was embarassing opening the door with all the creaking and popping it was doing, and it couldn't have been good for the body of the car either with the way the door would squeak when driving around.

 

If you're on such a restricted budget that you can't afford the only product on the market that will do what you want to do - then perhaps you ought not to be worrying about fixing your doors right now.

 

You need to determine which hinges need to be repaired on your door. To do this, have someone lift the opened door and release it a few times while you inspect both the upper door hinge and the lower one for movement. The upper hinge repair kit I sell includes lower hinge pins and bushings. Sometimes it is just the lower hinge pins and bushings that require replacement.

Lon

 

All I can say is good luck....

Fixing that hinge will involve removing the front clip, hood, fenders, and doors. Most of all, once you're under there, you never know what you're going to find (rust, bent frame rails). It took me 3 days to remove all the pieces, and about 3 monthes to fix all the other problems I found. Not to mention things will never line up the same, whether you mark the bolts or not (could be good or bad). My biggest advice is be very carefull aligning the doors, and get an extra set of hands whenever you can.

 

Wow, you sure took a lot of steps that aren't necessary to just repair the door hinges. There must have been a lot of rust or other damage that you were also taking care of to necessitate those extra steps. If you're using GM's hinge repair method, then removing the fender inner liner is necessary to remove one of the bolts on the lower hinge.

To repair the door hinges with the Upper HInge Repair kits I sell none of those steps are required. Of course with either repair method you'll need to suport the door. Removing the inside door panel to access the single hidden screw on the traingular-shaped door seal gives you more clearance to grind off the head of the upper hinge pin.

Lon

 

LON, how do I get this kit?

 

Click on Top-Down Solutions over there--------------------------------->

It is under Body & Interior category. Two versions are available; 200370, $74, Upper door hinge repair kit and 201370, $96, Greasable upper door hinge repair kit.

Lon Salgren
Top-Down Solutions

 

I am sold .
I've been to the dealer & all they had were the lower pins .I have the hinges from year one I bought years ago b4 I knew what was involved . they will sit till someone else wants them.This one of the must have fixes for these cars.
btw i paid $65 each for the hinges