64 Door Hinge Rebuild

[CTX-SLPR]

Howdy,

 

Has anyone ever rebuilt their door hinges?  While mine feel pretty solid and don't wiggle much when I try and lift them, they are definitely wearing the paint away in the door jamb on the top side of where the door seal lip is.

It's on both sides so either the new door seals I put in is doing it or the doors are sagging.

 

Thanks,

[Pat Curran]

If you open your door very slowly and it drops down when it clears the latch, you have an issue. The hinges are adjustable and that may be all that you need. The hinges on the first generation were rugged so try adjusting first before you make any other changes. If you have the shop manuals for your car, the adjustment procedure is outlined.

[RivNut]

I rebuilt mine last summer.  Not hard but I did remove the entire hinge from the door AND the cowl.  I got new hinge pins and bushings at a local jobber; they're a common size.  With a punch, remove the old pin, remove the old bushings, reverse the process with the new bushings and pins.   It was nice to have a vise to use as a solid surface on which to hammer.

 

One thing that I did not do but works well for re-aligning the doors is to use a 1/8" bit to drill through both the hinge and cowl BEFORE you loosen them.  Do the same to the door side of the hinge and the door frame.  When re-installing the hinge, use the drill bit as a drift to align the hinge.  You don't mention what year your car is, but if it's a '63, early production, you'll have to remove the door skin to access the hinge bolts for the door.  '64 and later, perhaps late '63, the hinge bolts are accessible through the door jamb.

 

Someone may have done this with the doors in place.  If so, it would be good to hear from them.

 

Ed

[slosteve]

I rebuilt mine last summer. 

 

Ed

 

Were they showing much wear and was there a noticeable difference after rebuild?

 

Steve

[RivNut]

Were they showing much wear and was there a noticeable difference after rebuild?

 

Steve

 

 

It made all the difference in the world when we were trying to align the doors with the body.  We had to get the doors right before we could hang the fenders and get them aligned properly.  If the door sagged even the slightest, the fenders didn't go on correctly.  I'll add that the strikers were not on the body when we were hanging the doors, so everything depended on the hinges.  One hinge had a weird weld on it so I made one hinge from the original door half and the cowl half off a parts car. 

 

Ed

Edited January 15, 2016 by RivNut (see edit history)