Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[rustyreks]

Am having problems removing hinge pins on the fordson doors am swapping doors over from one cab to another as previous ones badly rusted will remove and replace with new pins problem being that they are badly seized any thoughts on this would be appreciated.How have others tackled this problem rustyreks.

[Les Foster]

By co-incidence I just ran into the problem of removing frozen hinge pins from an E83W yesterday. My friend and I wanted to remove the passenger-side door from a 1948 van so that we could cut out the firewall and part of the door frame/sill and cab floor structure- basically the bottom right quater of the cab front of this LHD Thames. We needed it to repair an E83W pickup cab that had been altered to have two footwells. Anyway, the hinge pins had been in there since '48 and weren't coming out! We might have tried heating with a torch but the pressed hinge halves attached to the door might have melted and at any rate we did not have a torch handy. What we did was grind off the pin head and the protruding bit of pin below the hinge. We then tried hammering the pin downward and then ground off the tiny bit that moved. We repeated this a few times on top and bottom of the pins then it was easy to pry open he pressed portion of the hinge that is attached to the door open using a large screw driver driven in above and below the fixed half of the hinge attached to the body. By spreading the pressed hinge open you can then pull the door off over the fixed hinge half and the remains of the pin can be carefully drilled out. This is a drastic method but it doesn't really hurt things if you are careful and just open the outer hinge the minimum amout to get the door off. You can then hammer the spread hinge closed again. -Les Foster, Canada

[rustyreks]

Les i ended up doing exactly the same as what you suggested i got the hinges off the door levered the doors off the pins with a screw driver without much damage once i had ground the ppins down.The pins are still in the hinge tried drilling but it must be high tensile so no luck there will have to heat it carefully with gas will have to take it to the local garage to remove as i dont have gas.Thanks for suggestion the other idea someone suggested to me was to cut down the side of the hinge with a hacksaw to let the penetrant in and then punching the pin out afterwards braze up the hinge and redrill.