left lower door hinge

[Diesel Dawg]

Help my hinge is wore out!!!! I can get a new one for 85.00 or is there a way to repair the old one? The holes for the pin are wallowed out.

[ellis93]

Its a pain in the a__ but the holes can be welded up in them. As far as repair gos some of the big chain auto part stors have bushings and pins for it. They are in what is called the help section.

[PToombs]

Greenleaf on here overhauled his. He drilled them out and put in something like 1/4" or 3/8" pipe and drilled it for a grease fitting. Then he used a bolt or heavy pin down thru. Works good and is greaseable. I'm pretty sure he posted about it here someplace.

[dpuckett]

You SHOULD have a bushing set in the hinge- takes 2 bushings per hinge. I think OEM was plastic; aftermarket is brass or something similar. *IF* the hinge isnt wallowed out, you can just slap in a set of bushings. If the hinge IS wallowed, you can either weld it up and re-drill it, or get a new(er) one.

DP

[terryblue2002]

Below is a post that I put on TDR some years ago.. It still applies today. Go to, http://www.turbodieselregister.com/foru ... hinge.html
to see the pictures...

1st gen door hinge problem solved ! Terry,s super hinge
Hi guys, I was asked by one of the guys to post this for the members.
The door hinge problem is nothing new. It has been a problem since 1972 when the hinge was first introduced . The lower hinge is the main problem.
From 72 to 80 there was no bushing and a smaller pin. They worked ok if you oiled them. But the front tires blew road crap up into them causing them to rust and grind the pin in half. In 81 the hinge got bushings and a larger pin. Everyone at Chry thought it would solve the problem. It didn't ! the main reason was the bushing material. It was metal core plastic with a .270 surface area.
The plastic wore and or compressed in short order and there was not enough surface area. The 72-80 hinges actually lasted longer than the later ones.

The next problem was that when you buy a bushing and pin rebuild kit you will find that the bushing don't last vary long at all even though the replacement bushings were bronze instead of plastic.
The reason they fail so quickly is because the bushings are made out of cindered bronze which is better known as Oilite. Cindered bronze does not hold it's shape well. It compresses vary easily. The vibration from the truck rolling down the road just hammers the bushing out. Then your right back to loose hinges again.

I solved the problem over 20 years ago. There were some rather large fleets out there that were getting real tired of loose door hinges. I was asked to re engineer the hinge and solve the problem once and for all. I did just that! After designing the new fix and submitting the prototype. Chry. did not want to build the expensive hinge in the small #'s for just the the fleets.
But they were going to have to solve the problem for the fleet's if they were going to keep the fleet accounts. At the time there was not any cheap over seas labor. I however did have a fully equipped machine shop at home and never turned down anything I could make a buck on in my spare time. I got the job for building the hinges and made a lot of brownie points with managment!

I rebuild the hinges using 1018 steel for the bushings. I made the bushings on a turret lathe. The bushings had a .700 surface area with a grease fitting and machined groves in the bore so the grease would go all the way around the pin. I would then press them into the hinge and mig weld them in place. I would then line ream the bushings to size. The pin tol. was .0015 to .002 fit..

The upper hinge was a lot less trouble. I just made 1018 steel bushings fit them to .0015 and drilled the forging for a grease fitting. I then had to cut a notch on the door half of the hinge to clear the grease fitting..

I really do not know how many of these I have done total to this date.
I am sure I have made over 5000 of them in the past 20 or so years.
What I do know is that I have never seen one ever come back to be fixed the second time.

Any one with a lathe can make the bushings. The reamers I use are special however. I had them made special for the job. They cost me about 500.00 last time I ordered a set. There are cheap expansion reamers out there that you can get. But the bores in the bushings must be parallel ! This is tough to do with a short hand reamer.
Today I still do about 1 or 2 sets a month for people that know me. The big fleets got rid of all the first gen trucks a long time ago. But it was nice while it lasted.
I took a few photo's of the hinges on one of my trucks for you guys to look at. If your handy in the machine shop you will not have much problem doing them yourself. For those without a machine shop you might want to give me a call.

I guess the next subject I should follow this post with is the the door shell problems. And yes I solved all those problems as well many years ago.
The higher powers at Chry. should really have their ***** kicked for the 81 to 93 door shells!!!!!!!! Engineering warned them what was going to happen when they decided to make the doors out of 50% lighter steel. But all they cared about was if they would make it out of warrentee

Help my hinge is wore out!!!! I can get a new one for 85.00 or is there a way to repair the old one? The holes for the pin are wallowed out.

[powerage]

Have to be a member there to see more than the first post?

[terryblue2002]

Read my post at the bottom of this thread..

Its a pain in the a__ but the holes can be welded up in them. As far as repair gos some of the big chain auto part stors have bushings and pins for it. They are in what is called the help section.

[ellis93]

Read my post at the bottom of this thread..

Its a pain in the a__ but the holes can be welded up in them. As far as repair gos some of the big chain auto part stors have bushings and pins for it. They are in what is called the help section.

Why? Ain't no way I have the tools to build a set. I do have money tho.....care to build some