Hey gals and guys.

I've spent the last 2 days searching religiously on this, and haven't found anything that pertains to my question/problem. While Lons/Andyz28's walk through on how to do the bushing and pin replacement are more than adequate, the results seem to not be explained well.

I have replaced the upper hinge bushings and pins with the dorman (I know, I know... I couldn't shell out the necessary $ for the good quality kits at this time), and the lower hinge pin and bushings. the lower moves freely, but the upper does not! It's tough to move, period! I haven't reinstalled the door yet as I'm still doing bodywork on it, but when I loosen the lock nuts and tap the pins a little bit out it starts to move freely, but then there's a gap and it has vertical movement instead of staying in one place.

Is there something I'm missing?

 

The hinge should be tight as the doors are heavyweights.
It's hard to diagnose without more details.

 

See, that's what I was looking to confirm. Is it suppose to be tight and not move freely since it's the upper hinge? I don't want to reinstall the door and strip the bushings out because it's too tight, but if that's what is suppose to happen, then all should be good then.

 

Could you post a video? I have a hard time picturing what you're saying. Is it possibe the hinge is worn?

 

I'll see what I can do on the video.

Let's try this in the meantime:

The lower hinge swings freely and smoothly. No binding, no forcing it.

The upper hinge, with the pins and nuts, does not. You have to really put some muscle into it to move it back and forth. If you loosen the locknuts, and take a punch and tap the pins back out a little bit, it will start to move freely similar to the lower hinge, but it will have movement up and down similar to a worn hinge setup, but only because it isn't torqued down. If you retighten the nuts to not have the free movement up and down, it gets hard to move horizontally.

My question is this: Is it supposed to be torqued down to where it's difficult to move the hinge that attaches to the car?

 

Well, after playing with it some, and getting it to where it's tight, but not crazy tight... both doors installed, both open up and close perfectly, and there is no binding or sagging any more! Great feeling, I have to admit... not having to worry about it scraping my ground effects any more and all.

To finish out the thread in case anyone else does a search: Both upper hinges were difficult to move while off vehicle. I couldn't get a torque wrench in the area, so I don't have an accurate measurement of how much torque I put on the nut, but what I did was tighten the nut until the first thread of the pin started to show and left it at that.