My doors sag really badly, both upper and lower hinges are shot - however I do have the repair kit from Lon to do both hniges

I have heard though that sometimes the lower hinge can be out of whack so bad that even Lons kit doesnt fix it and new doors (or welding on new hinges are the only way) so i want to make sure my doors are ok to be repqired before i go wasting my $200 kit on them.

Basically the door side of the lower hinge moves vertically on the lower hinge pin although the bushings seem to be still installed in the hinge ok. The lower hinge pin is fixed firm in the door side of the hinge, in fact i think i am going to have to cut it in peices to get it out. Does this sound normal for a badly worn hinge are are these suckers too far gone to be a viable repair?

Thanks
Richard.

 

I have repaired two customers doors that had badly worn lower hinges. In the first case one of the holes for the lower bushings was so worn that it wouldn't hold the bushing in place. I did a quickie repair by filling the hole with JB Weld before installing the bushing. It worked. A better method would be to put some weld beads on the ID of the hole, grind flush the hinge then install the bushings.

In the second case the hole that is supposed to tightly contain the bottom of the lower hinge pin was too worn so there was movement at that point after the repair had been completed. I solved the problem by welding a nut on the bottom of the hinge which tightly contained the pin when intalled. There is a second method that could have more quickly been used to solve the problem. You can also just put a couple of welds on the lower hinge pin and hinge. This method would require grinding off the welds between the pin and hinge to remove the pin in the future if the lower hinge pin or bushings required repair in the future. If someone is unaware of it being welded they could damage the hinge by trying to beat out the pin.

In both cases my hinge repair kits did solve the sagging door condition. I just thought I'd share some tips of how I've repaired some of the cars that were badly worn.

Lon

 

Thanks Lon, i appreciate it. I have actually just been out in the garage and removed the hinge pin on the lower hinge. The hole for the bushings don't seem to be a problem, nor does the lower hole on the door side hinge (everything seems tight enough there) however, the hole on the top side of the door hinge does seem slightly enlarged (due to me getting the pin out of alignment when trying to remove it).

Also, the frame side of the hinge still seems to be able to move within the limit of the door side hinge.. Is this ok or is the door side of the hinge bent out of shape? I measured the frame side of the hinge and it seems to be straight...

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Richard.
----------
One more thing, the wear was only on the pin where it is inside the bushings, the bushings actually seemed to be ok and i needed to press them out of the hinge, it was just the pin that was badly worn.

I am going to have a hard time getting the detent roller pin out, the old pin is very badly worn.. Will attach pics soon..

 

Ok, Here you can see the parts of the old hinge pin where it went through the hinges, you can see how badly worn they are and that all of the wear is on the parts that pass through the bushings.

The bushings themselves were reasonably ok, only one of them was partly broken but still had to be pressed out.

You can see how badly the detent pin is worn, going to go buy a propane torch tomorrow and see if i can get it out without breaking it off.

Finally here is the whole hinge assembled before i dismantled it, you can see how much room there is for the frame side of the hinge to move up and down within the door side of the hinge.. This is the thing i am most concerned about - should there be this much room for movement?

Thanks,
Richard.

 

Here is the hinge..

 

Mount the hinge with the detent roller pin in a vise. Cut a narrow slot into the larger diameter pin that the detent pin presses into using a reinforece abrasive metal cutting blade and Dremel tool. That will release the pressure holding in the detent pin. Weld up the slot and grind flush before pressing in the new lower detent pin.

The lower hinge looks fine. The upper hinge will prevent the movement you're concerned about.

Lon

 

Thanks again for the reply.

 

I managed to get the detent roller pin out last night.. It involved a propane torch, a 6" bench vice and a 24" wrecking bar I managed to lift my workbench off the ground and bend the pegboard against the wall of my garage in the process!!!

Anyway, it is out but now my lower hinge looks in even worse state than it was before

 

I prefer to cut a slot or two into the large diameter pin down to the level of the detent roller pin to relieve the pressure of the press fit. I use a fiber reinforced abrasive metal cutoff wheel and a Dremel type tool. I actually switched to Black and Decker brand instead of Dremel brand because it is less expensive, has higher torque and a 5 yr replacement warranty. You still need to pry it out with a bench vise and pry bar, (my bench vise is a large heavy-duty one with 8" jaws) but the slot relieves much of the pressure on the pin.

I haven't tried heating this particular part with propane, but I'd be concerned about weakening and distorting the remainder of the hinge frame. Another method I've used on similarly stuck items such as brake drums stuck on an axle hub were to drill very small holes around the perimiter of the interface of the two, again to releive the pressure between the two. I have used heat and cold to do a shrink-fit.

Lon