The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors DOOR HINGE ADVICE PLEASE

On my 59 fleetside apache I am looking to fix the creeky doors by replacing the hinge pin and bushing. The lower hinge bolts loosen then just spin. I suspect the nut is turning aswell but see no access to get a wrench on it at the hinge or from underneath.
Any suggestions.
Many thanks.
Steve

i think there is a nut that is welded on the back side, so no wrench needed. i just had my doors adjusted by a body man, and all he used was a socket with an extension for the bolt, no wrench on the back side.
maybe your nuts are stripped ?, which wont be a good thing.

good luck.

leonard

Pretty much the same thing happened to me when I restored mine. The cause is the bolt that's welded to the backside of the hinge bracket has probably broken. I removed one of the two bolts that would come apart & used that hole as access. I took a old bar, cut it to size to fit through the removed bolt hole, bent it to ninety degrees & then manuvered it to pinch the nut while a buddy loosened the bolt. The bad news is that the only way to properly fix it, is to remove the fender to gain access to re-weld the nut. Good Luck.

Steve,from the sound of things your 'captive' nuts have broken away from the inside of the panel.
AFAIK they were welded to the backside of the panel.

To get the bolts out completely might involve a pry bar (or similar) placed between the hinge and the sheet metal to pre-load and jam the nut then try and turn the bolts out.
Don't go mad in case you bend things up though.
Only problem then is the nut,assuming you get the bolt out,will drop into the box section!
Maybe someone else will come up with a suggestion on re-attaching said nuts!
Good luck.

Steve, I had the same problem on my 58. The welded nut had broken loose from the back of the panel and the bolt and nut just spun as an assembly. I took it apart just the way jockbolter suggests, by wedging a prybar against the nut to jam it while I turned the bolt out. Not alot of room to work, so you'll have to get creative with what you use for a prybar and the angle of attack.

It wasn't easy, and I think I invented some new cuss words, but I eventually got it out. If the nut and bolt have grown together over the past 50 years you might want to soak it good with penetrant for awhile first.

Putting it back together was another story. It's been awhile since I've done it, but I don't believe there's any way to get to the back of the panel to weld a nut back on. My solution was to take a slightly longer bolt with a new nut and lock washer. I reversed the removal method with the prybar. Once the lock washer started to grip it was fairly easy to tighten everything up.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only way to weld the nut back would be to either remove the fender and cut a hole in the back of the hinge pocket from the lower cab/firewall side to get at it, or buy one of the patch panels with the nuts already attached from one of the venders, cut out the old section, and weld the new one in.

If I were to make the same repair today, I'd be tempted to try removing the hinge assembly and using epoxy to "weld" the nut back in place. I'd put the epoxy on the nut, and put the nut and bolt together tightly in the bolt hole to keep everything aligned while the epoxy cured. Once it set, in theory the nut should stay securely in place after you remove the bolt. If you try this, I'd recommend using a putty type epoxy instead of a liquid so you don't accidentally get it on the threads and glue the nut and bolt up tight. Of course, if the metal is rusty on the back of the panel this fix might not work too well.

Just FYI, the hinge repair kit I bought came with hinge pins that were about an inch too long. I ended up using the new bushings and the old pins. The new pins would have worked, except the hinge assembly won't fit back through the hole in the pillar with the extra pin length hanging down. This was about 9 or 10 years ago, so hopefully that problem has been corrected by now.

Bobby

Mar-K sells new cage nuts for the pillar.
You can weld them without disassembling the pillar, you just have to drill a couple of holes to plug weld the retainer. The holes you drill will go on both sides of the original hinge bolt hole.

I also had a hinge repair kit with pins that were too long but, it was nothing that a cut off wheel couldn't fix. To make sure they didn't work loose, I just tacked the top of them with a mig welder.

Cage nuts are h3ns teeth. The cage is specific to the task force. The nut has to slide left and right for alignment purposes. I WILL CHECK MAR K FOR THE CORRECT CAGE NUTS.....