FE-FC Holden Discussion Forum

The drivers door on my van has been showing signs of dropping (sagging) lately. I had been thinking that I was getting wear in the pins or the bushes. I finely got around to removing the door to check the hinges for wear. Sure enough there was slop in the hinges. My first thoughts were that that the pins or bushes were worn as I had been thinking, but after removing the hinges from the car I found that the pins had moved upwards so that the knurled section on the pins were no longer seated into the hinges. The knurled sections are larger in diameter then the rest of the pin and this was why I had slop in the hinges once they moved out of position. For those who don't know, the knurled section of the pin is hammered into the hinge body when fitting the hinge sections together. This holds the pin in place. I checked the passenger side hinges as well and found the same problem.
My fix was to MIG a small tack of weld to the head of the pin onto the hinge. Once this was done, no more slop and I shouldn't have the problem again.
I hope this info will help some of you guys who like myself were not aware of this problem.
Cheers Graham

Cheers Graham and thanks for the heads up.

I have the passenger side door off my ute doing some minor rust repair (hopefully the last of it). The door hadn't been showing signs of sagging but after reading your post I thought I would check. Bottom hinge was fine and stiff. Top one had some movement so I preceded to take the hinge off the body. Murphys Law at play again - couldn't undo the inner bolt. Tried and tried and tried..... even with an impact driver. Wasn't until I was able to get decent heat into it that it moved.

Low and behold it had the same issue that you outlined. The bottom pivot point on the body of the hinge was worn slightly due to the pin rotating. I tacked a suitable washer to the bottom of the body to take up this movement, slammed the bolt all the way down and tacked the head of the pin as you suggested. Bingo - no movement at all.

As time permits I will check the drivers side even though there is no sagging.

Thanks again for your suggestion.

Cheers Rod