The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Who does door hinge pins

Does anybody in the group put door hinge pins in? I’d like to have my door hinges rebuilt for my 48 panel truck. I figured I’d see if anybody in the group does that. If so, let me know, give me your contact information and we can talk.
Thanks…joe

If you have a drill press, just do it yourself. Pretty straight forward process. There are tons of you tube videos to help.

I'll second what Craig said. Here are a couple of tech tips on rebuilding door hinges.
Rebuilding door hinges with oversized pins and bushings
Rebuilding old door hinges on an Advance Design Chevy pickup truck

Good info in both of those.

As Craig says it isn't too difficult, Joe. I don't do this for others and I'm not much of a fan of the you tube videos. Some of those have been done by people selling stuff and I don't know if they always have any experience or knowledge about what they're doing. I've attached some images of a lower passenger door hinge that came to me needing attention. I rebuilt it using hinge pins as sold by The Filling Station. Your hinge pin ought to be stationary at the top and the center part of the hinge ought to swing on the pin without play. Which is usually the opposite of what is happening. My suggestion would be to get the old pins out as carefully as possible. I drill through the center with a 1/8" bit and then try to work the drill bit slowly over to one side so the pin hole is not distorted and the pin is weak enough to push out. Sometimes I heat and quench them to help the pin get loose. You want to free them up so the old pins can be pushed out as easily as possible (which sometimes isn't as easy as you wish). Once I have the pin out nicely, I use a long bolt or rod to set the center point up so a drill bit will go right straight through the swinging part. If you have access to a lathe it would be ideal for this, but I'm betting you don't. The hinge pin kits you get will be a larger diameter than stock. As I recall, some are 11/32" or so. You can also use a common bolt if you want. Metric ones give you some extra size choices.

There will also be one or two springs on the top hinge to keep the door open. Replace those with new ones. Getting them in can be a little fiddly but if you're patient you can do it.

On this hinge I drilled out the pin and also you will see I had to add a washer as the old hinge had worn so much it needed the slop taken out of the area. Not uncommon on something this old. Once that was done, I greased the center part's hole with some Lubriplate (you can use any sort of grease), the pin was replaced and all is nice and tight and it feels like new. At the bottom of the hinge, the hole was too large (it had wallowed out with age and use) so I used a small hammer to tighten one side of it (as you see with the arrow). Now somebody before me had filed the holes out (to give them some more adjustment room) so if I use this hinge I will use some washers under the bolts that hold it.

Hope this is helpful.

I'm curious Jon, unless I misunderstood your post, how do you set this up on a lathe? I would think a milling machine might be easier.

Thanks folks, but my drill press needs parts and I’ve gotten to a point in my life where sometimes it’s better to just have someone else do the work for me.
BUT, I did find a Stovebolter who said he would help me out. So it seems everything taken care of… thanks again and hopefully your info will help others also….joe

Hi Phil,
Sorry...I missed your question and just saw it. The headstock holds the drill bit needed and the inner part of the hinge is fastened firmly where the tool bit normally would go...with the path carefully set so the bit runs straight and true through the center of the old (stuck) pin. Then the tailstock is slowly moved toward the headstock until the bit goes through to the other side. A milling machine would work also. I don't know if it would be easier. Like a drill press you would have a blind side to deal with where on a lathe you can see both sides and like the drill press you need a table vise to hold the part steady.

Jon's lathe procedure is a lot simpler if the machine also has a milling attachment that allows the hinge assembly to be moved vertically to align with the spindle of the lathe. Start out with a center drill to make a guide hole for step-drilling the hinge pin out, and finish up with a chucking reamer since drill bits don't make perfectly round holes. If the brackets are worn egg shaped, it's even possible to fabricate bushings to take up the slack and get the hole diameter back to original. Using collets in the lathe spindle to hold the drill bits and reamers instead of using a chuck is also a good idea, if you happen to have that capability.
Jerry

I did my hinges using a hand-held drill motor to get the seized pins out. I drilled from each end of the pin and did go a little off center, but that didn't matter as the ends of the holes were on center and I used bushings. Drilling for the oversize bushings was done at a friend's with his drill press, then reamed with a set of adjustable reamers I bought to get the bushings a snug fit in the hinge bars.

Jerry Kassis on Youtube. Search Youtube for 1954 Chevy truck door hinge repair. The video was from 2012, but says you can send him the hinge for repair or he shows you how. I think he was doing them for one of the vendors but it was a while ago I watched the videos he has.

Here's the Jerry Kassis video Chevrolet Pickup Door Hinge Restoration that Kevinski mentioned above for anyone interested.