Having hanging doors is annoying on multiple levels. For one, the door doesn’t like to latch properly and makes it hard to open. Your gaps are also all over the place which doesn’t look nice either. Lastly, the hinges will creak and pop and won’t allow the door to open and close smoothly.
While we do sell complete replacement hinges, if you want to keep the originals and rebuild them, then this video is for you.
Disassembling and reassembling the hinges isn’t too terribly hard of a job, but it can be tricky with a spring in there that can come flying out. Remember to be safe and wear proper safety gear!
Another problem with rebuilding the hinges is you do have to pull the doors off – so while rebuilding the hinges is pretty straight forward, but its a big job that requires removing the door. If you’re in the middle of restoring your entire car though, then that’s not an issue.
Overall the process for disassembly doesn’t really require any special tools. You’ll need a grinder of sorts to grind down the pins to get them out, and it’s recommended to use vice to compress the spring and decompress it safely.
In order to fully disassemble the hinge, you’ll need to compress the spring to remove the detent pin safely. Once you have everything apart, it’s important to inspect the metal hinges where the pins go through. If these holes are oblong or not perfectly round, you’ll have issues later on. At this point it’d be better to replace than repair unless you’re handing with a welder.
Rebuilding the hinges you need to be very careful with the brass bushings. They are strong but fragile, they can crack fairly easily. In the video he’s using a piece of wood and tapping the bushings in very gently to avoid cracking them.
One thing the installer didn’t touch on was grease. It’s good to add some grease where the detent rides to make it a smooth working hinge and avoid wearing down that part again.
If you need parts to rebuild your door hinges, or want to pick up a new set of hinges, hop on SS396.com or give our friendly techs a call at (203) 235-1200!
