white_elephant said:
i removed those suckers off, but now i cant find something to put back in the hinge, i got a 7/16 bolt and it sags like a biach, and its a imposible to put it the one in the bottom it doest fit...it wont go because it hits with some kind of factory bend that there is on the door,
what do i need to use? measurements? pictures
thank you..its almost 12.30 and i cant get those mofos to close
So after reading an article online about taking my doors off, I decided to try it and
see what I thought about the fit afterwards. I knew that I liked the idea of being able to take the
doors on/off without having a bolt to remove with a wrench. I just wanted to be able to unplug the accessories
and lift it off and call it good. However, I was worried that the door would never fit the same (see update
at the bottom of this writeup).
I started out with the driver's side door because I knew that the pins were in the hinge the right way to
begin with and I wouldn't have to spend a bunch of time pounding them out. I also knew that if I didn't like it,
then I only screwed up one door and not two.
On the driver's side the hinge pin is pressed in from the top down. So when you remove the
lower part of the hinge... this part comes off fairly easily. On the passenger side the pins are
pressed in from the bottom up. This makes the process just a little more complicated.
My assumption is that the factory just put out a bunch of hinges that were all the same.
So when you take the driver's side hinge and use it on the passenger side, it needs to be flipped over.
Hence the pin going in from the bottom up instead of the top down.
Start off by removing the kick panel near the hood release lever. I removed two screws from
the plastic piece across the bottom of the door frame and then one behind the
hood release (its tucked in a hole).
Then I unplugged all the power accessories and speakers.
Now, remove the door from the hinge with the six torx bolts. You can trace the outline of the
hinge if you want for ease of adjusting the door later on, but I found that it didn't help.
If you have problems getting the bolts removed, then try using vice grips or welding
a nut to the outside of the bolt so you can use a real wrench.
For the next step I used my dremel tool and cut the lower part of the hinge off. It cuts fairly
easily and I've found that I am much more accurate with the dremel than with a grinder.
After the cut is made, pound the bottom part of the hinge off the pin with a chisel and a hammer.
Note: it should come off easy with a couple of taps. Now, cut about 1/4"-1/2" off of the bottom
of the pin and round it off some with the dremel again or some sandpaper. This will help you
take the doors on/off without too much interference with the door frame.
Put the hinges back on the door loosely and drop the door in place. With the help of a friend,
do your best to line the door back up so that it closes the way it should. Then tighten all your bolts.
I found that during this step it is a good idea to mask off both the body and the door with
either duct tape or electrical tape near where the A-pillar starts so that you don't chip the paint.
I also found that while attempting to get the door lined up and taking it on/off several times,
that the small brass sleeve inside the hinge got damaged. So, I decided to remove it for
ease of putting the doors back on. With the sleeve removed the door was slightly more sloppy
than when I started, but not enough to make me regret the mod.
The end result is pretty cool. Go take it for a test drive and see what you think.
Update 10.14.04 - I have since done this mod for both the driver
and passenger side doors. The passenger side door was slightly more
complicated, but not much. You still cut off the bottom part of the hinge, but
now you have to either press or hammer the pin out of that part and then
press or hammer it into the top part so that it looks the same as the driver's
side does. Also, I recommend cutting off as much of the hinge as possible.
Basically, take the pin and the door side of the hinge, hold it up to the
unibody side of the hinge, and cut it off right at the bottom. You just need
enough of the pin to engage the unibody side of the hinge and that's it.
Overall, I have no regrets with this modification. Both of my doors still
operate like they did from the factory and I don't have any problems
with leaky door seals or poor door alignment.
Thanks for reading and check out projectxj.com for more write-ups.
