Hi,

I recently bought an '84 Trans Am in good shape but needing a fair bit of work, one of the problems is the drivers door will drop halfway through opening, it's because the bushing at the bottom of the hinge pin has come out of the bracket which it sits in, it appears to be different from the one in the passenger door as it has a collar on it at the top and the passenger one doesn't.

I bought a bushing and pin kit along with a load of other parts I ordered recently, was only 10 bucks so made sense. I've seen had a good look though and removing the door to swap all these parts looks like a severe pain, especially as I really don't have any help at hand. Has anyone with a similar problem managed to somehow remove that pin and insert new bushings with the door in situ? or is it possible to use some kind of adhesive to reseat the bushing? Only problem with that is that although it can be tapped back in to allow the door to open once smoothly before it pops out again it wont sit flush in the bracket hole.

 

First question is what is your experience/comfort level with working on cars? The doors hinge bushings themselves aren't particularly difficult for somebody with moderate level experience working on cars. However, if you are new to this I wouldn't suggest attempting it. I've done both of my cars and it takes me about two to three hours to replace the bushings. I used an engine hoist and a ratcheting strap to hold the door up while I remove the original bushings. That way I can swing the door out far enough to grind the hole out so that the new bushings will fit but without snapping any of the wiring going to the door. Once I'm done, I just slide the door back into place. Not hard, but I could see how a novice could get in over their heads quickly. Since your in there, might as well just replace the upper and lower bushings and be done with it.

 

It really depends how bad the hinges have gotten. You've got four holes in each hinge that the pins go through. Only two of those holes have bushings. Often if the bushings have been "let go" the holes will be worn too. Sometimes the egged out holes need to be drilled and bushings installed. If you have to drill the holes and add bushings, the next fun surprise is there's no room to get a drill in there. If they're really bad the top hinge may need to be rebuilt. That means cutting out the old "pins".

That all said, it can be done if you have the gumption. A chunk of 2x4 on a floor jack will hold the door up. Get yourself the spring removal tool, they're cheap. Pop out the spring, support the door, knock out the pin, knock out the bushings, check how bad the grooves are worn in the pin, check all four holes for wear, if it all looks OK, new bushings, push in the new pin, pop the spring back in, oil and serve with ice cold beer.

 

Ok, awesome replies, thank you.

I'm reasonably confident working on cars so the procedure doesn't concern me too much, it's just the fact I don't have anyone to help hold and align the door if I had to remove and replace it, i'm also very limited on tools so no engine hosts or structures to support it from as i'm working in a back alley at the moment so really don't want to have a job like removing a door I have to leave half done.

From what I could tell there doesn't seem to be any play in anything except the lower door pin bushing and the detent roller seems loose but operational so just sorting that bushing would seem to fix the main issue right now, i'm trying to get it ready for a safety at the moment so if I can get away with the bare minimum that's ideal. If it can be done with a floor jack for support and just a case of knocking the pin out in situ then i'll give that a go first. Access is very limited but i've got the door card and weather stripping off for something else at the moment so that's helped a bit, i'll find a spring remover.

I know where to come for more help.

 

I thought I'd update on this.

I tackled the job yesterday with a friend to help support the door, upon removing the pin and bushings it became clear that someone had "rebuilt" it already but head put the new bushings in wrong. The only way you can install the bushings correctly is by removing the top too hinges so the door can be completely removed as the bushings insert between the 2 hinge brackets. The orientation of the ones in there didn't match the other door because they'd clearly just pushed the bushings up and down from the inner bracket without separating the door so there was nothing keeping them in place. We ground off the top two pins, fitted new ones with bushes and nylocks and put the new bottom pin and bushings in. Took about 3hrs mostly due to how laborious it was grinding the top pins with a Dremel in such a tight space.

It's all back together and working, only issue is the new parts have slightly moved the door forward and it was fouling on the wing so had to loosen the 3 bolts in the top bracket on the car side, rock the door down at the far end to try and pull the bracket back a bit and retighten it, it's no longer fouling but the clearance is extremely tight, not really sure how to get the top of the door backwards any more, am tempted to see if I can move the wing a mm or so by unbolting that.