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.
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.