Hinge repair

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Neto

Well-known member
Joined
May 31, 2012
Messages
456
Location
Holmes Co, Ohio
I've been working on repairing my hinges (1946 Plymouth), and I've discovered that it already had over-sized hinge pins. I'm drilling out the hinge tongue, and pressing in sintered bronze ('oilite') bushings to go back to the original diameter pins. (Originally it was just steel on steel - no bushings at all. 5/16" pins. Several pins were twisted off, and they were all 11/32".)

But I'm not sure how to make the holes in the hinge frame itself smaller. It had holes that were punched & pressed, so that some of the material from the hole forms a lip around the hole. The pins have to fit in there really snug, of course, or it won't do any good to have done all this other work. I've searched for some sort of flanged steel 'bushing' I can press or weld in, or some sort of really thick washers to weld on in place of the lipped part. Also thought of trying to shrink the lip back smaller by working around it with a small punch.
Has anyone done this repair, and if so, what did you find to be workable?
 
Thanks Tator. I don't think I explained very well what I need to do.

Here are photos of what I'm working with. (I should have put pics up to start with - just took these today.)

Some specs:
material thickness 1/8"
lip height 1/8"

Resulting pin contact area 1/4"

Lip thickness 3/64"

(The punch-forming process for the hole stretches the material some, then, if my information is correct, the original hole diameter was also later enlarged when it was drilled out for oversized pins.)
 

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What about drilling out and putting in bronze bushing?

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What about drilling out and putting in bronze bushing?

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The hinge tongue is the pivot point. The pins are supposed to be stationary in the hinge frame. (At least that's how they were originally.)

Check out the thread about hinge repair on the P15-D24 forum. (I didn't start the thread, but have posted pictures of work I've done so far on this.) See post #32 for pictures of the hinge tongue.

http://p15-d24.com/topic/46116-p15-door-hinge-repair-progress/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-519849

The original hinge design had the pins steel to steel in the hinge tongue, and a serrated portion at the top of the pin was pressed into the hinge frame, preventing it from turning there. As you will see in my photo (on the other site), I am drilling out the hinge tongue to accept bronze bushings. Or did you mean to have bushings in all three places?
 
I like Neto's idea. You may have to narrow the tongue in order to fit it in the frame with the flanges facing the tongue. I have seen that style bushing crack in Chevy S10 doors. I think it's because the frame material was too narrow. You could make or have someone make taller sleeves and weld them into the frames.
 
I like Neto's idea. You may have to narrow the tongue in order to fit it in the frame with the flanges facing the tongue. I have seen that style bushing crack in Chevy S10 doors. I think it's because the frame material was too narrow. You could make or have someone make taller sleeves and weld them into the frames.

How narrow can the tongue be, and still give enough support? I know you can't tell from the photos, but it is already only 1 3/8". My only idea so far is to make (or have someone make) some steel 'bushings' that would have an off-set cut into one side, so that they would fit down into the hole in the hinge frame, and then be welded in place. (The holes in the hinge frame would have to be drilled out to accept them.) If I had thought this whole deal out before I started ordering tools, I would have ordered a 5/16" hand reamer when I ordered the 7/16" one which I used to ream the hole in the hinge tongue. (I drilled it to 27/64", then used the hand reamer to get it up to 7/16. Well, actually the reamer finishes at .001 undersized, and the bushings are .001 over-sized, so that the press fit is tight enough for the bushing to stay in place, and not turn where it isn't supposed to.) I could do another order, of course, but the shipping was around 50% of the tool, so should have had a little more foresight. If I had the 5/16" reamer, I would use some 3/8" nuts to make those steel bushings, then drill them out & ream them up to correct size, so that the serrations on the hinge pins would cut in correctly, and hold everything in place.
I do appreciate the ideas & feed-back, because I'm not sure how I should do this, and if I do it wrong and mess it all up, I'll have to go looking for a replacement hinge.

Edited to add photo. Something like this drill bushing, only not so long.
 

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After reading it again, I wondered why you didn't just ream the new bushings to fit the old over sized pins probably would be the easiest solution.Unless the pin and mounts are worn too.
 
After reading it again, I wondered why you didn't just ream the new bushings to fit the old over sized pins probably would be the easiest solution.Unless the pin and mounts are worn too.

Partly because my tendency toward perfectionism got the best of me - I wanted to return to the original pin size. A more practical reason is that I couldn't find bushings with an ID of 11/32", and you are not supposed to ream or mill oilite bushings. (I'm not a machinist, just going by what I have read in my son's copy of the Machinery's Handbook and also on-line. I forget the exact terminology, and can't find it in the book right now, but this type of bushing is only supposed to be worked by a tool which has small rollers around its circumference that reform the material rather than cut it away. They say that cutting will clog the pores in the bushing, making the oiling properties ineffective.) And yes, the holes in several of the hinge frames were also wallowed out. Of the 5 hinges I've disassembled so far, 3 had pins that were twisted off at the top, just below the serrated section. That allowed the hinge tongue to wallow around back & forth, enlarging the bottom hole as well. The pin was rusted fast into the tongue, and the bottom end of the pin was turning in the hinge frame hole, which is supposed to be a tight fit. I had to drill out the pins - no amount of soaking or force in the press got them to budge at all. On at least one or two of them I got over too close to the side, and got into the wall of the hole a bit.

Maybe I should also say that this is kind of a restoration, but with some mild modifications, mostly mechanical, and electrical. I posted this question here because I wasn't getting much feed-back on the Plymouth site, and I figured that everyone has to deal with this issue to some extent, if you want to be able to adjust your doors to line up & latch decently. But it's not a high-dollar project, either, so I hesitate to call it a restoration.
 
Sounds like its not leaving too many options. Might braze the hole and redrill, be a little softer than welding for drilling and could control the build up.
 
Sounds like its not leaving too many options. Might braze the hole and redrill, be a little softer than welding for drilling and could control the build up.

Yes, I should have thought the whole thing through better before I started in on it. Too anxious to get started on it, I guess. Something will work out, but it does look like I'll need to purchase a 5/16" hand reamer yet. Should have ordered one at the same time I got the bigger one (to share shipping costs). Today I was looking through some of my junk parts boxes, and found one of those threaded lamp pipes. (where the wires go up through) It is just a bit small on the ID, and a bit large on the OD. But just a thin wall tube like that would be difficult to weld in place, at least certainly so for me. I'll also check with a couple of fabrication shops around here, to see if they have a heavy wall tube available already with the correct ID. (I don't have a lathe, either, so if I need to go that route, I will have to hire it done, which kinda' goes against my grain.)
 
I like this alternative...

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In my opinion, the guy (on the other forum) had the right idea, but should have used a hard steel instead of a soft copper insert. (How he surrounded the copper sleeve with weld material is beyond me and a "hack" cure at best.)

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Anyhow... copper and brass are "sacrificial" and "consumable". You already have the the consumable (wear) bushings pressed into your tongues. I would do what your gut tells you to do... beef up the frame holes, double (or triple) your pin contact area and have a good night's sleep. :D

.
 
way back i remember using gas and bronze rod to fill the eyes in Model A rod brakes .. we then drilled them to suit the new pins. they worked amazingly well..

could you try TIG welding some "silicone bronze" rod and re-drilling?

or even bronzing ?

here in New Zealand there are hinge pin kits for Nissan that come with new pins , circlip and bronze sleeves similar to the one above - Rockauto may have a kit like that ?

crate
 

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