Sagging door hinge repair JB Weld method

[pizzaman09]

Like many of us, my high mileage Comanche has a very saggy driver door.  This repair method uses JB-weld to fill the hinge holes that are worn out and redrill them to the original 1/4" diameter instead of drilling out larger and using a larger bolt.

 

My hinges had the center section hole worn out, initially I figured the role pins were worn but they weren't.  That said the roll pins were completely rusted in place.

 

First step was to remove the door, make sure to remove the door card, speaker and wires.  Then door detent device.  The 3 bolts on each hinge are T40 torx, and are extremely tight since they are deformed thread and loctited in place.  I chose to spray the inside of the threads with PB blaster prior to removal.  Due to limited space, a 1/4" drive T40 bit and a 1/4" ratcheting box end wrench were needed.

 

With the door removed my door had two spacers between the door and the hinge.  The first a body shim, the second a thick steel formed plate that cups around the hinge.

 

 

As stated my roll pins were rusted in place, no reasonable amount of hammering with a punch would move them.  To get around this, I got a Dremel with a cutoff wheel in between joints on each end of the hinge.  I originally used the standard Dremel cutoff fiber reinforced wheels with the little screw on mandrel.  Apparently those are fragile when the disc gets pinched and I broke two screws.  A friend recommended the much more robust quick change cutoff arrangement made by Dremel.  This did take some patience, do the bottom gap first then left the hinge and do the top gap. My goal was to abraded away as little of the load bearing surface of the hinge as possible.

The stub pieces of roll pin on the C part of the hinge, I had to push out with an arbor press.

 

Next I used brake clean and Q-tips to make sure the hinge pin holes were super clean.

Once cleaned, I mixed up some 6 minute JB Weld and used a tooth pick to spread it around the bore and on the top and bottom faces where the Dremel had abraded the hinge.

 

After the glue is cured, use a file on the JB Weld to make a flat surface for the hinge to sit on, I did top and bottom.  The goal was to make the hinge fit snuggly so there was no up it down sliding play.

 

After filling, I drilled out the holes first with a small drill bit, 3/16" or so, be careful the glue really grabs and pulls the bit.  Then very carefully one drill size right below 1/"4 and a final pass at 1/4".  I decided to use 1/4" bolts instead of the replacement roll pins as they were far easier to install.  Those bolts were slightly tight in the glue, even though they measured 0.247" in diameter.  I finished the hole with an oiled 1/4" ream spun in carefully by finger.  

 

Assembled with a copious amount of grease and painted.  The bolts were roughly a 3" bolt with just the end inch threaded and the rest solid shank.

 

Door alignment was a fun and challenging process, my tips are have a friend to help move the door up and down, and also note that the door striker hex is 18mm.  Even though the hinges were now tight, the door was still slightly saggy, so I removed the body shim from the upper hinge, this allowed for excellent alignment.