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Broken Door hinge

tgregg

NAXJA Member #1444
Just got a 95 Cherokee Sport. Everything looks good but the top door hinge on the drivers side has broken the weld from the unibody. I have MIG welding and am trying to figure the best way to weld it. How hard is it to remove the front fender? It looks pretty easy and that would let me weld it with the door closed and aligned.
Any other thoughts?
Gregg Turk
Oak Hills, CA
96 Cherokee
69 CJ5
 
tgregg said:
Just got a 95 Cherokee Sport. Everything looks good but the top door hinge on the drivers side has broken the weld from the unibody. I have MIG welding and am trying to figure the best way to weld it. How hard is it to remove the front fender? It looks pretty easy and that would let me weld it with the door closed and aligned.
Any other thoughts?
Gregg Turk
Oak Hills, CA
96 Cherokee
69 CJ5
There is a repair plate and FSB for the hinge.
 
tgregg said:
How would I start?? Go to a dealer??
gregg
Yes as far as I know it's dealer only item. You can reweld then add this plate that bolts over the hinge and wraps around the post. I think there is a shorter door stop also in the kit. The weld broke because the door opens a little to far.
 
Having done this a couple of times I will recommend:

You definitely should take off the front fender so that you can get at the hinge properly. It isn't hard, just tedious. Take off the front bezel, grille, etc., unbolt the fender, and go. If you live in rust country, don't bother to try to unscrew the little bolts at the bottom rear of the fender, just grind them off.

You're best off if you remove the door too, but that's a matter of choice. Make sure the hinge is lined up really properly and mig it back in. If you're good with a MIG wleder, this is an easy job as far as the actual welding is concerned. Be aware that there are two layers of metal here, with some heavier steel behind the surface sheet metal, and try too get a bond to the lower one. The last time I did this I also welded a piece of 1/4 inch rod into the gap on the rear-facing edge of the hinge, where there is normally no weld, to form a big fillet. The hinge tends to pull outward from the rear, and if you just weld it back, it will still tend to flex and tear out again.

Especially if this is a 2-door, you should also check out the door checks. The 2-door doors are so heavy that they tend to pull the door checks past their normal stopping point. What happens then is that the hinge hits its own built-in stop, and this is what makes the hinge base flex outward and tear loose. Replace any defective door check, make sure the frame of the door itself is not pulled outward or weakened, and if necessary you can even file or grind a little out of the stops that are built into the hinges themselves, to allow the door to swing a little further out before it flexes.

On my stepson's 2-door, I took one door check, welded the hole in the end shut, drilled a new hole about an eighth of an inch further in, and ground it down. This helped a lot in preventing further tearing.

If you get the hinge right, the door will line up nicely unless the pins are worn out too. If there's still some sag, remember that there is a shim under each hinge where it bolts to the door. Very saggy doors can be compensated somewhat by taking the shim out of the top and putting it in the bottom. Watch out, though, that you don't end up with too much gap in the rear edge of the door, or the latch will collide with the end of the pin in the frame.

I got a really permanent fix last time I did the 2-door, but be warned that with these heavy doors, something will give somewhere. Last I looked, the door itself was tearing apart, and the skin was coming loose at the edges!
 
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