Bushings in door hinges

[HenrikL]

My passenger door is hanging at the rear due to massive play in the top hinge. I have bought new bushings and if I have understood correct they must be reamed after they have been pressed into the hinge.

Before I start tearing things apart I want to get a reamer. Are the bushings in the "body part" or the "door part" of the hinge. If they are in the "door part" I can use a short reamer, which is much cheaper.

[cgarr]

They are in the door. The top one is kind of hard to ream because due to the shape of the door.

From what I remember I made a long extension with the reamer attached and went thru the bottom hinge and reamed the top one first then installed the bushings in the bottom hinge.

[HenrikL]

Thanks! Will try to take a few pictures and report my progress in this thread.

[eastbay]

don't over think this. Here is my process:
remove door and lay on bench
knock out both top and bottom bushings from door
then put in just the top bushing set
ream with an 18" long 5/16" drill on the lowest speed you can manage, (insert the drill through the bottom hinge without bushings)
insert lower bushings and ream with same drill on low speed
done

The 5/16" (7.9mm) drill on low speed produces a perfect fit for the pin. Fancy reamer not required. Also, do not spin the drill on removal, just back it out on reverse. The 18" length allows you to go straight through the bottom hinge and get a perfect line up for the top hinge bushings.

[HenrikL]

Originally Posted by eastbay

don't over think this. Here is my process:
remove door and lay on bench
knock out both top and bottom bushings from door
then put in just the top bushing set
ream with an 18" long 5/16" drill on the lowest speed you can manage, (insert the drill through the bottom hinge without bushings)
insert lower bushings and ream with same drill on low speed
done

The 5/16" (7.9mm) drill on low speed produces a perfect fit for the pin. Fancy reamer not required. Also, do not spin the drill on removal, just back it out on reverse. The 18" length allows you to go straight through the bottom hinge and get a perfect line up for the top hinge bushings.

Thanks for the input, but I think that here in metric Sweden a reamer is easier to find and cheaper than a 18" 5/16 drill.

[eastbay]

you might get the same results with an 8mm x 450mm bit though

[HenrikL]

Built something to use together with a hoist to make it possible to remove the door without a helper. Unfortunately the roll pin in the door stop didn't want to come out and the door is still on the car. Thinking about building some little tool to press out the roll pin.

[cgarr]

I don't have the original pins in mine, its not a taper pin is it? I know that tab is not really that solid to smack it. That may be why mine were replaced with clevis pins?

I like your door stand. I did something similar. I repainted the car apart after fitting everything and was trying to figure out how to get the doors back on without dinging the new paint!

[ertech]

How do you remove the electric part of the door?
Thanks

[HenrikL]

Originally Posted by ertech

How do you remove the electric part of the door?
Thanks

Haven't done that yet. My plan is to remove the hinge bolts, then pull the door out a few inches from the body to get better access to the wires in the door jamb. There seems to be enough wire length to do that.

[cgarr]

All the electrical connections are up under the front sill tucked in the corners, round white connectors then you can pull the wires thru. Kind of a pain because there is not much room to work.

[HenrikL]

Does anyone know if the roll pin is supposed to be removed up or down? I tried to push it down, but in the factory manual it looks as if they push it up.

[67R69S]

More pics of the beetle please! (sorry I have no advice for the door pins)

[HenrikL]

Originally Posted by 67R69S

More pics of the beetle please! (sorry I have no advice for the door pins)

Off topic: Here are some more pics of my 1957 beetle project (all text is in Swedish):
Termos med Fuchs (Sida 1) - Projekt - Boxerville

[cgarr]

I just looked mine and drove it up. I don't think it has any taper but since they are usually installed from the top I don't think you can drive it thru. I had to hit it pretty hard to get it moving.

[HenrikL]

Spent three hours building a little tool to push the roll pin out. The tool was a success and the pin is now out.

[HenrikL]

Before removing the hinge bolts I put some protection on the front fender.



After the hinges were off I pulled the door out a little to get access to the wires. My car has neither power windows or a passenger mirror and there was only the speaker wire to remove.



Forgot to put some protection on the rocker and got a scratch there.

[HenrikL]

Some more progress today. I made a simple tool out of a steel bar and together with an air hammer I had both hinge pins out in less than a minute. This was much easier that I expected after reading all horror stories here on the forum. The bushings were then knocked out with a hammer and a drift.

[HenrikL]

This weekend it was time to reassemble the hinges. First I used a M6 bolt to press the new bushings in place.

[HenrikL]

Next step was to ream the bushings. I found a cheap 8 mm reamer at an auction site, but it turned out that it was a "machine reamer" and was had a too short cutting section to use on the hinges.

I then bought a new "hand reamer" for about $25.





To be able to both turn and exert pressure on the reamer I put together some 1/4" socket extensions through the lower hinge. Not very pretty, but it worked very well. Note that using this technique there can not be any bushings in the lower hinge when the top one is reamed.





On the bottom hinge I had to use a clamp to get the bushings started in the hinge.