Replacement Door Hinge Pin Material

darwoodious

darwoodious

Darin Nelson
I've got some sagging doors on my '76 X (pretty typical I suppose) so was looking at fixing that. Figured that it is probably the pins rather than the hinges that need to be replaced and looked on our suppliers websites but they either don't have them listed or they are out of stock.

I have another '76 parts car to pillage so looked there too. There are 4 pins all together but I have only of the 8 between the two cars that aren't messed up. I checked with the doors off of each car. You can simply grab the end of a hinge and feel the play in it.

So... I also own a small metal lathe and really a pin is just a specific diameter bit of metal. The question I have for this forum is: what grade of metal should be used for our door hinge pins? One would think that the pin would be of a slightly weaker grade and be the "wear" piece. But then again, the X1/9 was considered a "low cost" car. And maybe they didn't bother with concerns of fixing sagging doors in the future (the rest of the car rusts first anyways, right?), so they just used the same grade mild steel for both the hinge and the door.

Thought I'd ask here if anyone knows. Looked in the shop manual and as you'd expect it doesn't say. If there is not information, I'll probably just replace with an oversized (by a few thousandths) pin and bore the hinge to fit.

Thanks.
 
Please post your results. I too have a staging Passenger door that will need fixing.
I tried removing the hinges one time but gave up pretty quickly. The Phillips type screws wouldn’t budge.
 
Darin, I would think the pin will wear faster than the hinge even if they were the same hardness, due to the load and surface area of each. If anything I would use a harder grade material for the pins than the hinges, but no idea what grade any of it was from the factory. So I suppose whatever you can get will work fine. Maybe start with a long bolt that you can turn down? Then you have some choice of hardnesses.
 
I have some NOS door hinges, and I have a hardness tester at work. But we're closed during the pandemic so I can't go and test it!

I agree though, the pin would be slightly softer. My driver's side is a bit worn. What is important is to lube them often (who does?!?!) - My pins wore out very early on in my car's life, but lubing them with oil is a good idea in my opinion (the owner's manual states to use engine oil if I recall correctly).

Maybe you could modify something out of a catalog? Maybe metric drill rod?

https://www.clipsandfasteners.com/Door-Hinge-Pins-Bushings-s/85.htm

https://www.dormanproducts.com/p-27583-38438.aspx

MWB has no stock at this time:
https://www.midwest-bayless.com/p-6289-4245373-oe-door-hinge-pin-fiat-bertone-x19-all-oe-nos.aspx

Found an old post:

https://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/replacing-door-hinges-pins.35022/#post-302577
 
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If I recall correctly the pins are a press fit in the outer ears, and 'loose' in the door pivoting tab, mushroomed for safety. Makes sense since you want it stationary at the ends, and the door side tab rotating on the pin, not the other way around. I had to use a drift to punch them out of the outer ear after grinding off the mushroom from one end of each. I think you can use mild steel, otherwise you will likely wear the door pivoting tab first, which wouldn't be good at this point.
 
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I bought 2 12" of 0.375 (3/8"or 9.5mm) 1018 cold rolled bar. I should be able to make 4 sets (1 set per door) of these, but as is typical I'll mess up the first batch.

I'll first remove the existing pins, clean the hinge plates and measure the internal diameter. If there are variations, meaning that the wear was not on the pin but rather the hinge plates, I'll find the largest size and bore all of the hinge plates to that size. Then I'll lathe down the steel pin to the correct diameter.

The pin will be something like this:

IMG_4541.JPG


The pin diameter of 0.32" is just an average - again, could be larger based on wear. I'll leave a bit of a ridge on one side and slot the other side for a retaining ring.

One other clever upgrade would be to add the ability to grease the hinge. Once i get the old ones apart, I'll be able to inspect for a grease reservoir there. If nothing is there, probably pretty cool just to add a small channel to add pre-assembly grease there. This system ought to be fairly easy to remove for future greasing too.
 
looks exactly like what I'm building. the stock X1/9 pins also have a groove cut along the axial plane. would be pretty easy to drill for a grease fitting but the problem is you'd never be able to pound it in (it's a press-fit on an exe)
 
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