Last week I decided to rebuild our 66 door hinges so the body guy could get a correct idea of door fit. I had ordered the Scott Drake kits so I was all ready to dive in....I thought.
The hinge pins door holder pin drove out easily with 1/4" drift and a reasonable sized whammer. But when I got to the roller pin I was a bit baffled as it's pressed into a blind hole. Not being particularly smart, the obvious solution didn't occur to me so I stewed about it for a few minutes and then contacted MS. And MS sez "Well dummy, all you gotta do is weld a 5/16" bolt to the head of that pin and pull it out with a nut, washer,and a deep socket". Naw, he didn't exactly say it that way butt (TS&T) that's how I felt.
So after an hour in the blasting cabinet everything was all pretty and ready to reassemble.
MS had warned me to grind the new rollers a bit shorter so as to leave a little extra space when I press in the new roller pin...so's a little oil will run down around the pin. Good idea! So I shortened the roller a bit and then I had an even better idea.
I decided to see if I could drill and cross-drill that new roller pin so I could get oil into it. And, sure enough I could...and did. This should have told me I was in trouble but the little light didn't come on.
Off to the press to seat that brandy new, freshly modified by me, roller and pin. I got every thing lined up and began slowly pressing the assemly in to the hinge body and everything went great until I had it pressed in to within about 1/8" of seated.
That's when I dscovered that the new pin was so soft that a big bunch of pin-boogers had pushed up the pin and were jambing against the roller...it would not turn. The danged pin assembly was useless. And my efforts to clean up the mess and finish pressing it didn't work. I actually think the pin had expanded from pressing. So I welded a bolt to it and pulled the new pin/roller out, cleaned everthing up and put the new roller on with the old pin (which really wasn't worn too much cause it was properly hardened 50 years ago).
After that everything went swimmingly with the assembly and I was down to the installing the new springs.
Compressing and holding compressed springs can be a challenge. I was reminded of the last Model A shifter spring I had to install compressed. It missed me but just barely. And I was amazed that it would put that big of a hole in sheetrock...from that far away.
Now, granted, Mustang door hinge springs a a lot smaller than a Model A shifter spring but they still could have a lot of energy if one got loose. The standard accepted method for installing compressed springs (as least as far as I know) is to compress the spring with some sort of squeezer...like, maybe a vice, and then tie the coils in three or four places with wire. Then you release the vice and install the compressed spring, cut the wire, and everything is jake. Well, I kept thinking about that Model A spring and came up with a slightly better way, I think.
I used a 5/16" X 2 1/2" bolt to compress the spring.
Sorry...I took pix after everything was done so I had to use the old mangy spring for the pix.
Then I spent an hour making a compressed spring holder. I found a piece of tubing that had an ID just bigger than the diameter of the spring. I welded a 5/16 washer to each end of the a piece of tubing about 1" long. Then I split the assembly length-wise and did a little massaging to the 1/2 washers so they were sort of going in the same direction as the spring coils.
Then I put the two pieces around the compressed spring, got them more-or-less lined up with the spaces between the compressed coils and clamped them tight with a pair of Vice-Grips.
Then I released the 5/16 nut and slipped the assembly into the space in the door hinge, and released the Vice-Grip. Sproing...everything perfect. No broken glasses, no lost springs, no holes in the sheetrock.
Anyway, though you might be interested. Most of you prolly have a way better and simpler idea but, like I said, I ain't too smart sometimes.
BB
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MustangSteve wrote:
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I used the Scott Drake kit. I had one of the roller pins broken in the hinge.(no top on the pin) Drilled it out and thought I measured the hole and pin depth. Well the pin didn't seat far enough for my tastes. But, how to remove it. Can you show a pic of the setup for the bolt welded to the pin and a washer and nut to remove the pin. Can't visualize this process, where is the press point? Just re-read this, the deep socket is the spacer, right? Oh and now I can put the springs in without drywall damage too! Thanks.