240z Door Hinge Rebuild

[jwtaylor]

2 hours ago, jalexquijano said:

Are these any good replacement?

https://www.amazon.com/DATSUN-1969-1978-Hinge-Brass-Bushing/dp/B071KQD7MC

Anyone has had any experience with these ones?

Those are the same ones I have.  I bought them through ebay instead of amazon. You can get a set of 4 for all the hinges.  These look more like the original pins than the other options..

Edited March 26, 2018 by jwtaylor

[Hardway]

You are going to have to locate a Series-1 door spring or something very close to it.  You will want to look around on eBay, CL, Datsun Classifieds, etc for someone selling a lower hinge, driver or passenger side and rob it for the spring.  What makes the Series-1 spring odd is that the coils are thin versus every other door hinge spring I have seen.  If someone had one apart and could give you the dimensions you might be able to find something via a hardware vendor like McMaster-Carr, Grainger, Fastenal, and the like.

[jalexquijano]

What is wrong with the brass bushing set sold at amazon? Bad quality?

[Hardway]

The set on Amazon -> https://www.amazon.com/DATSUN-1969-1978-Hinge-Brass-Bushing/dp/B071KQD7MC is the most original kit available and provides a "correct" end product.  Additionally, it is well made as it is the same kit I used.  As long as you take your time disassembling your hinges and re-assembling, you should be very happy with the kit on Amazon.  $55 shipped per door is not bad considering you should never have to rebuild them again.  There are other cheaper alternatives as previously mentioned that probably work but I will only speak to the set I installed that is the focus of this thread.

[jwtaylor]

7 hours ago, Hardway said:

You are going to have to locate a Series-1 door spring or something very close to it.  You will want to look around on eBay, CL, Datsun Classifieds, etc for someone selling a lower hinge, driver or passenger side and rob it for the spring.  What makes the Series-1 spring odd is that the coils are thin versus every other door hinge spring I have seen.  If someone had one apart and could give you the dimensions you might be able to find something via a hardware vendor like McMaster-Carr, Grainger, Fastenal, and the like.

I am going to get the dimensions of the coil and look for a replacement.  Got to get busy and pull the doors first though. 

Edited March 28, 2018 by jwtaylor
Poor wording

[jwtaylor]

I have removed my doors and disassembled the hinges from my 12/71 car. 

The spring has an ID of 0.815",  OD of 1.077", free length of 2.082" and the wire size is 0.129".  McMaster-Carr part number 9620K31 is close with an OD of 1.031", ID 0.781", a length of 2.5", with a wire size of 0.125".  It will need to be cut down length wise and ground flat. 

The larger problem is all the pins for the interleave ends are worn, not to mention that all the pivot points in the flat bars are badly worn.  The pins are quite a bit smaller than on the later hinges.

At this point I'm going to get new springs from Mcmaster-Carr for these hinges and see if they will work OK.  Pins will just have to be what they are.

I have a set of what are supposed to be 1973 hinges also, that I will rebuild to put on the car.  There is a modification that will need to be done to get them to fit, you need to grind away some of the metal on the hinge (see the photos).  This will allow the hinge to set correctly and not hit on the door structure.  The orange hinge is the 12/70 hinge, the white is the '73. it's ground off at about a 45 degree angle from the mounting surface. 

[HappyZ]

When during reassembly did you insert the spring?  How did you do it?

[jwtaylor]

Which set of hinges do you have?  I used the white ones, in the pictures, which are from a '73.  They will work on early Z if you do a small grind on the back corner so they will set as they should.  

First I installed the hinge pin Then the arm that runs on the roller was installed to door side of the hinge,  the spring was put in it's location and then I used my bench vice to compress the arm and spring enough to allow the roller and it's pin to be started into the hole.  This is kind of touchy as you have the spring compressed well to get into the hole.  You can only get a small part of the arm to contact the vise jaws so be careful.  Look back at post 2 -  Hardway shows how he did it.

The series 1 hinges are assembled in about the same procedure to get the arm pins in.

Edited April 18, 2019 by jwtaylor

[HappyZ]

Thanks for the responses.  I ended up assembling the entire hinge for my 7/71.  I then inserted the spring into the recessed area of the hinge.  Then I used my 12 ton press to compress the spring on the lever end of the spring.  I thought for sure it would shoot out like a rocket, but it stayed in place long enough for me to compress the spring and then slide it off the press (needed to pry on it with one handle of pliers) and onto the lever.

i think it was stated elsewhere, but to align the door I just folded a bath towel in half and laid it on the door sill.  I closed the door fully and tightness the bolts.  Low and behold it was a perfect alignment.

 

Thanks to all of you for the great posts and Q&A.

Edited April 18, 2019 by wadelester

[fusion]

I am going to rebuild my door hinges on my 76 280z.  Is the Dorman 38397 still a good option?  Has anyone been able to source the roller detent pin?  One of mine is broken.  

Does the pin from a 280zx or any other vehicles work?

Otherwise maybe I could drill/tap for a shoulder bolt.

Edited February 18, 2022 by fusion

[Yarb]

@Terrapin Z

[Terrapin Z]

The hinge on my parts car 280 is broken. 

There is a seller on eBay that offers a kit. They seem to be popular. I have seen him on FB too. 

The eBay link is strange but here is a clip of the item. Just search for the description.