Home Built Door Hinge Halves for '31 coupe

Saturday night at about 10:00PM I decided I would tackle some pesky door hinges. When I got the car, the doors were not on the body and it turns out that on a few of the hinges, they removed the pins and then also removed the half-hinge for those and apparently lost them, so I need to replace those. I have found places to source the hinges from, but they will not separate them into the parts of the hinges that I need, and this was the perfect opportunity for me to get creative and build some from scratch.



I started by measuring the thickness of the factory hinges and then looking around my limited s**** pile for some matching donor steel. I came up with a large piece of 3" x 3" angle iron with the correct thickness, so I used that....



I used my trusty Sawzall to cut the piece out if the angle. It would have been a lot easier with a Plasma cutter, but my tool selection is still growing and my pocket book can't keep up with the tool requirements yet, so, I gotta make due with what I can. This is a step up actually because in the past I would have used a hack saw and my dremmel tool to make the cuts. The cutting took quite a bit longer than I figured it would as my blade was getting pretty dull and it was after midnight so nowhere to go buy a new one...



Here is a pic of the opposite door with the hinge-half in tact that I will use as a guide. If I build one just like this one, then I can flip it and it should work on the other door...




I cut the piece and compared it to the original hinge....



I started out by making the small kick out angled part by cutting almost all the way through the piece but not quite...



Then took some pliers and bent it up to the correct angle and left that to be welded into that shape permanently...



I like to do a lot of checking to make sure I am staying on track. Hate to finish something and it be all wrong from messing something up in the beginning and then wasting all that time and having to fix it later. Rather find any issues as they happen and correct them at that point...



Next I measured where the little kick-out was toward the middle and I cut the piece in two at that location....



At this point I set the pieces up where they were offset correctly and then went to welding them together...



It isn't a nice pretty TIG weld because I don't have a TIG welder .... YET!!!! But here it is at this point...



And after some grinding and sanding to clean it all up nice, another "compare to see where we are" shot again...



Unfortunately I got to working a little too intently and I forgot to take a few pics along the way. At this point I took a piece of solid steel rod, I believe it was 5/8", and I cut the part that wraps around the pin. The original is an extension of the hinge part that has been bent around and then welded, or at least that is how it looks, but I don't have any equipment that would be capable of bending this stuff correctly, so I went with this method. .. I took the Solid Rod material and cut it the correct length, then I set it up in the drill press and drilled a hole through the center of it. Then I cut the hinge piece on the end to accommodate the piece of steel bar in the right location, then welded it together. After grinding and sanding and doing a little shaping to make it match the original, this is the result so far....




Fits perfect!!!!



All that is left to do is to make the 3 mounting holes. I found some Stainless countersunk 1/4"-20 threaded screws at Lowes and I got a tap and drill bit to match that. It was 3AM at this point and I decided precision measuring and drilling would need to wait until I was well rested.

 

looks cool!!

 

Nice!
You dont need a tig welder. Turn the heat up and turn the wire speed down on your mig.
I can tell that you dont penetration.

 

Thanks!!!!

That weld looks like it is all sitting on top of the metal but there is penetration. The heat is all the way up on this little welder and when I turn the wire speed down any more, it blows back and sticks to the torch end then I have a mess on my hands. lol I traded some junk for this welder and it has served me well in the past, but it is time to upgrade. I have some thicker stuff that I need to weld that this one will not do at all, so I am stuck until I get something bigger. But still making due with what I have for now. I'm actually ready to buy something, but I just can't decide on the best one for me. I'll have something new very soon though. Ca't wait - like a kid in a candy store.

 

You are gonna be so happy when you upgrade...Keep at it!

 

I know! I can't wait! But I'm trying to keep the excitement from clouding my judgement so I can wait if I need to, in order to make a good purchase so I'll be happy long term.

Looks like my bike may sell on Friday also, so this will help because I also need a plasma cutter and I need to buy some more things for the '31.

 

Tonight I finished up the hinge-halves by measuring and drilling the 3 attachment holes and then tapping them for the screws. I had purchased some 1/4"-20 Stainless Steel Oval Head Phillips Machine Screws, and I ended up tapping them to this thread, then later as I was running a tap through the existing original hinges, I found them to be 5/16-18 thread. So I will probably go back and get a full set of those and re-drill and tap these 6 holes to match.

But here are the pics....

Holes all drilled and started to tap the first one.




Finished tapping the first....




After I finished tapping all three holes with screws in there to test the fit...




And finally, installed in the car....



The oval heads stick out just a little. I thought they would look neat in there, but if I go up a size to the 5/16-18, I think they are going to hang out too far. So I will attempt to locate some Flat (flush) headed screws for the final ***embly.

 

Nice work man! You did good-you needed a part, & you used what you had to build it, can't beat that.

One small tip I learned when building things that I need to drill & tap. After I drill the hole, I use a countersink in a drill to give a small depression on the side of the part that the bolt will thread into, then I tap it. This will make starting the bolt WAY easier than it would be without the small amount of countersink. Small thing, but I hope it helps a little.

Good luck on the build

Dan

 

Great job, did the same thing to make 5-window hinges. You're well on your way. Hey, shut the door!

 

Great job on the hinges!

So you'll know, the original style flathead slotted countersunk hinge screws for 28-31 Model As can be gotten at any Model A parts supplier.

 

Cool tip on the mini-countersink on the hole. I think I will go ahead and do that when I swap the holes out to the 5/16" size next. Thanks man!

lol, I can't wait to shut the door for the first time!!

Awesome. I may just go that route then.

Anyone know a good place to get replacement hine pins? Or should I jsut make those too?

 

Great idea! Have you thought any about getting the hinges in line with each other? On my car they dont line up very well. I thought about using threaded rod to hold them in line and redrill the mounting holes. The three hinge thing is what seems to be causing my problems.

 

Yeah, I think the drill rod idea might hold thing sin place better because the material is stronger.

My doors have the original hinges on them still, and the halves that are missing the ones I had to build are still connected to the doors. I can attach the doors and use the door itself to get things lined up.

If you had all the hinges removed and were trying to get things lined up from scratch, then I would think this method would get things tweaked into the right position.

The tricky part of mine is that when I got it, the top was chopped (half way anyway) and the doors were cut down but not welded back together. So the top hinge is not connected to the bottom majority of the door on either side. so, I have to line up hinges and make sure the top of the doors get back on straight.

They did too much before completing anything. The body was also off and the floor crossmembers were all removed without any cross bars welded in to retain the shape, and there was rust involved. That along with the doors being removed left me with a body that was flopping around and that makes it a ****** to get eveything lined up again. It doesn't iook like they were ever really intending on putting the car back together to start with.

 

Your hinges look great....good job....I would like to learn welding and fabrication some day.......It is definitely an art.

 

Nice work...

I ended up buying a Lincoln from Home Depot. Great do-it yourselfer welder. Welds 5/16 thru 24 ga and plugs into 110V...


http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...Id=10053&productId=100670934&N=10000003+90401

 

Nice job...
Thanks for the post

Steve

 

Looks great

Building something from scratch just makes me grin.

 

Thanks for that huge compliment! You're gonna make my head swell. I'm just figuring things out as I go.

As for learning fabrication and welding, just jump in and start doing something. I'm convinced that is the very best way to start learning stuff. You can see it over and over on TV or in pictures, but when you actually start dong it, it takes on a whole new meaning. And getting your hands on it and trying to figure it out gives you the basis to start asking the right kinds of questions to learn.

 

I was looking at those before. They seem to be able to get the job done just fine, but I am wanting to step into TIG welding and learn that. It's a whole different animal all together I hear. I figure it will take a lot of seat time to get decent at it, but if I keep putting off taking that first step, then one day I'll look back and be thinking about how I should have done that a long time ago.

 

Thanks for the compliment!

I learn a ton on here by watching what others have posted, so I want to at least contribute what little I can when possible. Maybe someone else will be in the same situation and this might help them out. That's why we are here, right? Asking and answering and sharing and learning.

 

thanks man!


Yeah, building something from scratch that you could buy somewhere, is very awesome to me. When someone asks where you got this or that and you can say "I got some metal and cut it up and welded it together and built it from scratch"... That's cool!

 

good build , I need to build half of a hinge for one of my cars , I hope your way works

Thanks

beaulieu

 

Iw as looking last night for some of these screws. Everywhere I found them they were 5/16-24 (fine thread) but I checked mine and they fit a 5/16-18 (regular or co**** thread). I even rana tap through them and it was quite easy as it was only removing some rust in there. Mine are definitely all 5/16-18.

I went to Fastenall and bought 20 5/16-18 x 5/8" long flat screws, but with allen inserts instead of Phillips. The problem is that the angle on the counter sink is not step enough and too deep.

I did chuck a couple of them up in the drill press and used an angle grinder with the flapper sanding disc and then a dremmel with a carbide bit against them and changed the head to fit a lot better. Only problem now is that the threads don't go deep enough toward the head of the screw, so I will either have to extend the thread or countersink the hole a little in the hinges.

18 screws that each have to be custom machined to fit. Fun times!!!!

 

Great tech on hinges.......How much time did the hinge take overall?

 

The first one probably took about 4 hours of total time and the second one was probably down to about 2 hours.
The tools I used at the time were not very efficient for this type of job - a reciprocating saw for cutting the pieces out and a small MIG welder and a ****py little cheapo drill press. If I was to do it now I'd have access to better tools for the job like the new plasma cutter which would knock off a ton of time just because of cutting time, and better control over the welding with the new TIG welder and the bigger better drill press would also help. I could probably knock one out now in about 1 -1.5 hours now I bet. A lot of that would be because of going through it previously and not figuring it out as I go now.

 

Very nicely done..beat having to beat the pins out sometimes.

 

When are you gonna start selling em....

 

You think there is a need for many half-hinges? I could go out there this evening and start making more.

 

The question is could you make the other "half" of the hinge...or complete hinges....if you could theres your work!