Hi all,

My doors on my 68 are sagging and you have to slam them to get them to close. I bought the door hinge pins (upper and lower) and the tension springs to repair the hinges ( hopefully it will fix them). My question is can I leave the doors on, kinda prop them up to take the weight off and replace the hinge pins in place doing maybe the top and then the bottom. I'm a little worried about completely pulling the doors off because I'm not sure if I can hold them into position ( by myself) and get them back on. I have never had to align doors and not sure if I'll make it worse then it is and scratch or dent the doors in the process. Any advice anyone has on the process would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ray

You have to take the door off to change the bushings.The pins are not what wears out(as much) its the bushings. If you get a helper you can do it or you can buy a door stand pretty cheap. Like this-
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=40386

Ray, If you can't find a helper, let me know... I could stop in on my way to my parents sometime.

Ray, you're gonna need to take the doors off. No two ways about it. You have to file or grind the tits off of the pins in order to get them out so that you can replace the bushings. The pins are most likely fine. Yu may need to straighten the two halves of the hinges once you get them apart. The two 'ears' (for a lack of a better term) of each half spread apart a little from the weight of the door. You can squeeze them back together in a vise. Test fit them with the new bushings and pins to see how much play they have, then adjust as needed.

Before you remove the doors, mark the location and position of the hinges with a marker or something easy to clean off. Remember which hinge went to which door and you shouldn't have much trouble re-aligning them. But once you repair the hinges, the doors will need to be readjusted anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Thanks for your offer Buckmiz, I remember talking to you before on another post, you go past Troy visting your parents. I've checked out the link to the door stand Shoddy F-Body listed (thanks Chris) and being a sucker for any new tool I can justify buying I think I'll order it and give it a shot with the stand. I'll use HwystarJoe's advice on the replacement procedure and see how it turns out. Buckmiz, do you ever make it to the car show at the Troy Strawberry festival or the Tipp City Mum Festival car show? If you do I'll try and look you up when I'm there checking out everyones cars.

Did this a week or two ago. You do not have to remove the door, but you do have to remove the hinge. Supported the door, then removed the hinge.

Its a good idea to mark the hinge placement, but they almost always seem to need tweaking afterwards anyway.

I've never been there, but I'll try to make it this year. My car is not going to be ready this year unless I hire an OverHaulin crew :D

My parent live in Maria Stein if you know where that is...

Hi Buckmiz
Yes I do, I've actually done a little work for a company there (Maria Stein Grain).
The Tipp city show was suprising. I happened to be going through town and saw all the cars driving in ( I think it was more like a city sponsored cruise in for the MUM festival) and went to get my son's and check it out. They closed off the entire town center and there must have been two to three hundred cars there. It lasts from mid day to evening and was pretty good. If you can make I'll try to look you up. It's toward the latter part of summer.

Ray

Sounds good. I plan on hitting a few cars shows and many swamp meets this year. Send me an email if you ever want to meet up and hit an event.

Will do.