Door Hinges

[DiddyZook]

I'm looking for some helpful advice from those who have removed and/or re-aligned a few Sierra doors before.

The doors on my '89 SWB seem to be drooping backwards (top rear corner touches rear frame, lower rear has bigger gap). Requiring a solid thump to ensure the door latches properly. The door does have a bit of play in it, eg you can move it up and down a little, exhibiting slackness in the hinge. So therefore I figure that to fix this I really need to replace the hinges. Does anyone sell a good aftermarket hinge? (I am sure GRP used to even have a stainless one available)

Removing the hinges has proven to be a real pain. I spent time today helping MadZook remove the front clip off the Drover ready to transplant onto the Sierra which used it's roof for brakes (read rolled). He has been at it on and off for a few days now and got the Dover doors off and one Sierra door off. We still need to remove the pther half of the hinges and two lower hinge bolts on the Sierra before the front can come off.

He has used an impact driver (and broken bits), heaps of Inox (like WD40 only better), a big screwdriver with another through the handle like a T to give leverage and plent of brute force. These suckers won't budge. Next we go borrow an Oxy and try heating them a bit, there has to be an easier way. Does anyone have any good ideas on how we can remove the hinges?

[Gwagensteve]

I have used droopypete's air chisel with a phillips bit with excellent effect, but as that is droopypete's not mine, I use a cold chisel to nick the edge of the screw and then tap it round to undo it. This works very well, but does damage the screws. I believe that a little bit of heat will soften the factory loctite and will help too, but I have never done this.

Once you have the screws loose you will find that there is heaps of adjustment in the hinge to get the door swinging true. the holes inthe hinge where it bolts to the body are overdrilled from factory and this will provide all of the adjustment you would require- just pinch the screws back up inthe desire position.

If that's still not enough, you can adjust the catch location ( the loop on the body)as the cpative nuts in the doorjamb are "free" and there is quite a bit of adjustment there too to get the door swinging smoothly.

sierras have pretty, ahem, "liberal" tolerances so the factory built LOTS of adjustment in.

There should be no need to replace the hinge although it may be hard to resist the bling of stainless.

Steve.

[munga]

when i bought my zook, i HAD to pull the doors of and see how it looked. when i put them back on, i loosened off the latch and chocked the bottom edge of the door at the front and rear with some strips of wood to the desired height.
Then when i'd tightened up the hinges (after spraying the screws with lanotec), i adjusted the latch.
6 mths later and theyre still spot on.
If i was going to remove them regularly (i doubt i ever will again), i'd invest in some hexheads to replace the screws.

[Guy]

Small chisel, to get em moving.. makes the screw look a bit ugly. Purchase a few packs of stainless machine screws to replace em.

Done ..