Re: Door Hinge Play

Posted by Larry Jenkins on June 16, 1997 at 14:21:16

In Reply to: Door Hinge Play
posted by Dean Travis on June 15, 1997 at 10:24:24

: Hi,
: How much play should there be in the Door hinges? Is this just a matter of replacing the hinge pin? My car is a 1931 160B slant windshield four door. Since the doors are currently off and I'm approaching their installation, I thought I'd investigate this!
: Thanks
: Dean
Hi Dean..Loose door hinge pins can cause door alignment problems, so they should be fairly snug.Here's what I did on my 30 coupe.I reamed out the door and body hinges with a long 1/4" drill.The drill has to be at least 6 inches long to deal with the angles on the body panels to allow the electric hand drill to clear.Then I bought the longest 1/4" stainless steel bolts I could find.These have enough unthreaded body length to make up the original pin length.I put them in my metal lathe and cut each one to length, rechucked them and turned the hex head to the right round diameter and then crowned the head like the originals.After that I knurled the pins under the head like the originals to provide the locking feature.When that was all done, I polished the domed heads and they look like they are chrome plated but they won't rust.

E-Mail Comment to Webmaster