TR4 -6 Door Hinges

[RogerH]

The last few days I have been having a right old punch up.

About 4/5 years ago I fitted new hinges to the top of both doors on my 4A.

Over the last two weeks I have had to remove these newer hinges as they were seized solid.

These have been soaking for a while now but are still solid. 

So today I got angry. I used a decent flame thrower to warm it up a touch and mounted the hinge in a big vice and gave it a really great wallop - not a lot happened.

I had to keep getting it 'Red' hot and whack it.   Using this method I managed to get the pin out of the hinge (3 in total)  

It took some serious heating and bashing.   One of the hinge pins had sheared off inside - it was stiff.

 

With the hinges disassembled I started to measure things.

The long hole in the 'A' post hinge wing was apprx 7.9mm.  The old hinge pins were 5/16" (7.924mm)  The new pins are apprx 8mm

So from day 1 they are always going to be a very tight interference fit.       

As they can not be lubricated insitu they will only get tighter as corrosion builds up.

The question must be  Why are they so so tight - no need for it. I appreciate that the doors are heavy and put quite a leverage on the hinges.

 

So when I re-assemble them with the new 8mm pins I shall open the long hole up to 8.1mm.  This may be a fraction on the big side.  We shall see.

I shall also incorporate a grease nipple hole in the long hole body so they can be greased insitu.

If the 8.1mm clearance hole is too big then I shall open the hole out further and fit a PhosyBronze bush with a tighter clearance.

I'll be back

 

Roger.......

 

 

 

 

[Richard71]

Thanks for the info Roger, new door hinges are on my list of winter jobs, does anyone know where I can find good quality hinges?

Richard.

[RogerH]

Hi Richard,

the Moss hinges look very well made but will seize up pretty quickly.

I imagine most of the suppliers use the same stock - you need to check/ask question.

If I were to buy a new hinge the first thing I would do is to take it apart, insert a grease nipple and grease it up.  The nipple must be removed when the hinge is installed.

 

Roger

[Richard71]

Thanks Roger, another item on the PQI list then eh?

Richard.

[ed_h]

I had a similar experience with hinges, Roger.  Three were stiff, and one was floppy, due to a broken pin.  Extracting the pins was a royal pain, especially the remains of the broken one. 

I also found that the available replacement pins are slightly larger than the 5/16 originals, but still not large enough for some of the wallowed out bores. 

I ended up bushing all of the hinges. Instead of one long bush, I used two shorter ones, leaving a gap between them. I drilled a small hole into that gap sized so a small oiler could inject some lube in there. The gap serves as a small oil reservoir. I also pushed the top bush down a little below the top of the hinge barrel. This makes a little reservoir for the top bush.  My hinges all had a little groove in the tops of the barrels so the could be lubed.

Ed

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by ed_h

[Bfg]

Thank Roger & Ed, for the heads up..  but rather than walloping & whacking, and serious bashing (wonderfully expressive terms words by the way )  ..could you not press the pins out  ..as you would other types of pin (I'm thinking UJ's and suspension parts), perhaps in a vice.? 

And then could you not simply file a flat on one side, for three quarters the length of the pin, so that light machine oil might be dribbled in to lubricate it ?  ..a slight countersink to the top of the bracket hole, as a rim to fill with oil, would of course make such lubrication very easy.  

Pete.

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Bfg

[RogerH]

On 10/15/2021 at 5:41 AM, Bfg said:

Thank Roger & Ed, for the heads up..  but rather than walloping & whacking, and serious bashing (wonderfully expressive terms words by the way )  ..could you not press the pins out  ..as you would other types of pin (I'm thinking UJ's and suspension parts), perhaps in a vice.? 

And then could you not simply file a flat on one side, for three quarters the length of the pin, so that light machine oil might be dribbled in to lubricate it ?  ..a slight countersink to the top of the bracket hole, as a rim to fill with oil, would of course make such lubrication very easy.  

Pete.

 

 

Hi Pete,

 the bashing, whacking and walloping is mandatory when removing hinge pins - we all do it.

Seriously though, I imagine the pins are pressed in with a heavy press. I have a 1 Ton press and it gets nowhere near moving them.

Heating and physical abuse came up trumps.

Filing the pin would not work as it is like glass.  yesterday (20/Oct) I found that the replacement pins are not that hard and the original installed pins are easy enough to drill out. So you could file a flat on them but not sure if it wouod help.

Most metal to meta parts on UJ's and suspension are not interference fits. These silly pins that should be a nice sliding fit are at least 0.004" interference

 

Hi Ed,

 I think the new pins are oversize (0.1mm, 0.004") so that the old worn hole can be oversize to fit.)

Roger

Edited October 21, 2021 by RogerH

[Lebro]

Seems to me an answer could be drill & bush the hinges as in post above (use sintered bronze not steel) then make up some stainless pins.

Should last forever. (but what do I know, I only have a TR3)

Bob

[stuart]

The Bastuck hinges seem to be OK and last well, we have re-pinned with old valve stems successfully too.

Stuart.

[RogerH]

Hi Bob,

 these doors and the leverage put quite a force on the pins and their surround. I think sintered bronze may be too soft. A marine grade or hard Phozy bronze may survive better.

I also think the stainless may be too soft.  No problem with the available hardened steel pins - they just need regular feeding of oil etc.

 

Roger

[Waldi]

I reamed my hinges after removing the old frozen pins to a slide fit with the slightly thicker new pins and assembled with Mo2S grease. I think they will survive me, I like lubing my car periodically. Time will tell.

Waldi

[JohnC]

FWIW I refurbished a couple using roll pins after drilling out the hinges to suit. Drilled the centre very slightly larger than the outers. Easy, quick and cheap. Only issue was that a couple of hinges I tried to fix refused to cooperate - I couldn't get the pins out. Both the pins and hinges were worn btw. Six years later and all is still fine.

Thanks to Richard Crawley for the idea. I think I have a note somewhere of all the relevant drill & roll pin sizes that I used if you need more info.

Cheers,
John

[RogerH]

Hi John,

 did you use heat to get the frozen pins to move.  It worked for me but you need them red 'cherry' hot.

 

Roger

[JohnC]

19 hours ago, RogerH said:

did you use heat to get the frozen pins to move. 

No. Belted them out. TBH I can't remember exactly how, but no heat. I think one came out easily with a centre punch, and I used that one to drive out the next.

Having read this thread, I wouldn't be surprised if the refusals were because I was trying to drive the pin out the wrong way!

John

[RogerH]

Hi Folks,

Yesterday I finished off the hinges (4 off)

The first to be assembled -  The over size new pin would not fit in the old hinge pivot hole (5/16" diameter).

After making a threaded hole for the grease nipple I ran n 8mm drill through the hinge pivot hole - Lo and behold the pin fitted.

So be careful as an 8mm drill will over size by 3 or 4 thou. Any who the fit was very good.  With no wobble off the two hinges plates.

I tried the same on the second hinge and the pin would not fit - the pin was bigger. So I ran a 8.1mm drill through - disaster. This gave a hole that was too big and allowed the hinges plates to be too sloppy - never to fear I shall fit bushes to this one.

The last two hinges worked out the same as the first.   

So what have I learnt in all this malarkey.

1     The old and new pins are not hardened.

2     The pins can be bashed out with or without heat They can be pressed out or  they can be drilled out - perm any 5 from 4

3     The diameter of the new pins is apprx 8.1mm - you need to measure precisely to get a good fit as they are not the same size as each other.

4    New hinges are stiff at point of sale. They will seize further.

5    Fitting the grease nipple is a wonder stroke as it will get lubricant direct to where it is needed

6    Soaking the seized hinge in penetrating fluid will take 8 days before any relief is found.

 

Roger

[JohnC]

On 10/21/2021 at 8:38 PM, RogerH said:

 The diameter of the new pins is apprx 8.1mm - you need to measure precisely to get a good fit as they are not the same size as each other.

Just curious - any reason you didn't consider roll pins? More tolerant of hole size, and you can make the diameters of the top & bottom holes a teeny bit smaller than the centre one.

[RogerH]

46 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Just curious - any reason you didn't consider roll pins? More tolerant of hole size, and you can make the diameters of the top & bottom holes a teeny bit smaller than the centre one.

Hi John,

to be honest I didn;t think about it.

There is a great deal of load on the hinge pin - would a roll pin deform under the load and cause the door to wobble - I simply don;t know.

I was surprised that the original pins are quite soft (easily drill'able). But then if they were hard then maybe the hinge body would wear and not be repairable as easily.

I'm not sure how long my method will last - having the body hole as a good clearance fit - rather than an interference fit.

Roger