There is likely no part of our Mopar that gets used more often than the doors, and especially the driver's door. Each time the door is used, whether to retrieve a cell phone or go for a drive, the weight of the door is transferred to the door hinge. Since most of our cars have doors containing enough steel to build three Kias, supporting all that weight over time causes the door hinge to wear, and the door to sag. Eventually this leads to latch misalignment, and the door must be slammed to latch, or may not latch at all. Fortunately there's an easy way to detect door hinge wear, and the repairs aren't too difficult either.
Most Mopar doors are held in place at the forward end with an upper and lower door hinge. The upper hinge of most cars is prone to wear the most, but after the upper hinge wears enough the lower hinge will begin to wear as well. In extreme cases of door hinge wear, the symptoms are apparent, as the door will be hard to shut and difficult to latch. If lifting up on the door handle makes shutting and latching the door easier, then the upper hinge or possibly both hinges are likely worn. The real way to tell is to open the door, then lift up on the outside handle or rear of the door. If you feel more than just a barely detectable amount of play, then the door hinges should be inspected and repaired.
The good news is that door hinges are fairly easy to repair or replace, but require the removal of the door, so extra care should be taken, and an additional pair of hands is a must to prevent paint chips or scratches. Once the doors are unbolted from the hinges, the hinge is accessible and can be either repaired on the car by drilling and installing oversize bushings and new pin, or removed to facilitate the repair. We recommend removing the hinge, allowing the use of a vise to aid repairs. We'll show you this method on an A-Body door hinge. In extreme cases, the hinge may be worn beyond repair, broken, or too rusty to reuse, and must be replaced.
Whether repairing the hinges or replacing them, the door needs to be removed from the car. The hinges are then unbolted from inside the car behind the kick panel area, and on some models, also inside the door jamb area.
Since our '71 Road Runner was going in for paint, and was in bad need of new door hinges, we decided to repair them. Upon inspection, our hinges were too far gone to fix, missing all of the detent hardware that keeps the door from swinging freely. While searching the scrap yards is one option to locate replacement hinges, finding a good used door hinge is pretty unlikely, so we looked to other sources. Fortunately, YearOne stocks hinges for most Mopars that are completely rebuilt to new specifications. Since all of our hinges were shot, our car was a good candidate for these rebuilt hinges, so we replaced them all, resulting in excellent door alignment and operation. Follow along, and we'll show you how to repair your door hinges, or replace them like we did with remanufactured units from YearOne.
