Door Hinge Plate

[Flyer58]

I bought a pair of full doors in good condition but two of the torx bolts on one hinge are broken off.

Can the locking plate on the inside be easily removed or is it held in place by some brackets?

My life will be easier if it comes out quickly.

 

[machoheadgames]

Pretty sure there are some metal tabs or something bent around it that hold it in place but allow it to float for adjustment.

 

[Gilaguy23]

They are held in place by tabs or brackets so if all the bolts are removed it dont fall into never never land as Macho said. Are the surrounded by all sides and not easily removed?? you might be the pioneer who has to discover that one.

 

[Flyer58]

That figures

I'm sure the entire window mechanism needs to come out first.

 

[machoheadgames]

It’s been at least 8 years since I dug into a door but I’m pretty sure you can get to the hinges if the window is rolled up. Don’t yell at me if I’m wrong though.

If I remember right there is an arm that rolls on a track bolted to the glass and spinning the crank rotates the arm. The arm might be in your way for one of the hinges when the glass is up. I’m not sure, but you’ll see it quite easily once you pull the door panel. It doesn’t take long to pull it.

 

[Flyer58]

I need to access the top hinge near the mirror mount so I'll have to cross all the window crank trapeze stuff that's in the way. My neighbor had a little handy Android borescope he bought for $10 on eBay. He's moved away but I sure could have used it so many times.

 

[ytradio]

Would it be possible to put the hinge back on with the one bolt to hold everything more secure. Then drill and easy out the other two? Or even drill and re tap the other two?

 

[Flyer58]

Would it be possible to put the hinge back on with the one bolt to hold everything more secure. Then drill and easy out the other two? Or even drill and re tap the other two?

Yes and that's probably what I'll send up doing. They grade 8 screws and if I could easily get the plate out I'd try welding a nut on the broken stud and try to remove it which still might be possible.

 

[machoheadgames]

I was wondering, if you can end up getting the plate out, maybe some heat and vise grips would allow you to spin the broken ones out, possibly from the back side that probably has some bolt sticking through.

 

[Flyer58]

I was wondering, if you can end up getting the plate out, maybe some heat and vise grips would allow you to spin the broken ones out, possibly from the back side that probably has some bolt sticking through.

Yes they are sticking through. I got my phone to snap a pic of the lower hinge plate and you can clearly see the walls/tabs holding the plates in place.

I also found the window crank works ok but looking at the rails and pivots it looks pretty ugly with 40 year old grease and a few loose joints so it may not be a bad idea to remove it anyhow along with the door latch. I can see a few plastic tie wraps holding the latch and locking rods in place.

Since I'm half way in there now why not go for it?

 

[Flyer58]

Well if there's a LONG way to go about doing something just ask me how and I'll show you.

I started off by printing a few pages from the FSM (95 YJ and mines a 92) to guide me through the removal of the window regulator. I had a little trouble because there's a "Division Channel" that goes between the main side glass and the corner window. The FSM said to remove the adjusting screw and slide it out of the way to remove the regulator. That channel didn't budge.

Long two hour story short, my 92 YJ has a corner window surrounded by a metal frame and I believe the later ones don't have that frame so it's a slightly different procedure. Once I got the corner window and division channel out everything was clear and easy.

I could easily see the hinge backing plate through the window slot but also determined it's held in place by bracket tabs and all that is welded in place before the door was built.

Then I noticed a stress crack in the inner and outer door skin along a bracket which holds the two skins together at the base of the corner window. In fact the bracket has broken off the inner skin. I also found both left and right doors have a crack in the same place. Poor design or is it from people grabbing the division channel when they close the door? I don't know.

At least I have all the glass out since I'll be welding the cracks. Welding that close to glass can be bad.

In the end I tried YJRadio's suggestion to drill and easy-out the screws and in ten minutes both were out. easy-peasy.

 

[machoheadgames]

The cracks are normal. Happens to every single set of YJ doors I’ve ever seen. TJs too. Drilled holes at the bottoms of my cracks and stopped it many years ago. The proper fix is weld them back, then stick a piece of angle up in there and weld it to the inside of the door. If you look up the “gaucho” Jeep CJ door rebuild he illustrates it if the pics are still able to be seen. Personally I don’t care enough about it to really do anything to fix mine. Probably won’t ever use my doors again anyways.

 

[Flyer58]

The cracks are normal. Happens to every single set of YJ doors I’ve ever seen. TJs too. Drilled holes at the bottoms of my cracks and stopped it many years ago. The proper fix is weld them back, then stick a piece of angle up in there and weld it to the inside of the door. If you look up the “gaucho” Jeep CJ door rebuild he illustrates it if the pics are still able to be seen. Personally I don’t care enough about it to really do anything to fix mine. Probably won’t ever use my doors again anyways.

Thanks, I found a good like for the Gaucho door repair and see he even patched a few extra mirror holes which I have too. My door is also missing the inside door latch cover plate. That should be easy to cut out and screw on.

 

[Flyer58]

I found this treasure rattling around loose in the bottom of the door. Look familiar?

 

[machoheadgames]

I found this treasure rattling around loose in the bottom of the door. Look familiar?

View attachment 119369

Holds the door handle in place. Should be two of them, maybe you only have one or maybe somebody dropped that one and bought another.

 

[Flyer58]

Holds the door handle in place. Should be two of them, maybe you only have one or maybe somebody dropped that one and bought another.

Thanks, I found it on the drawing and yes, the rear one was missing. Explains why the outer door handle pulls away from the door.

I also see there's a missing rod from the key latch to the locking mechanism. I don't have a key for the door locks so not a factor yet.

 

[Flyer58]

Making a little progress with the sill cracks. I'm going with the same mod as the Gaucho Jeep owner did but I'll be backing the sill with 1/2in square tube instead of the 1/2in angle only because I have a ton of it in stock. Also I'll be going the full length of the sill where he only added about of foot.

Judging by the way the door flexes when pulling it closed using the door pull I can see how that crack if formed by stress. I feel it's better to spread that force out over the length of the door.

I cut slots for the window trim tabs and drilled holes for a plug weld along the length.

The tube has since been painted. Not much space in there to work with.

 

[Flyer58]

Short rant about paint.

I'm slowly progressing with the door repair and prep for paint. The red is not original and not too bad but has a few waves going across. Then I got to sanding the flat black paint on the upper panel and window frame.

I don't know what kind of paint a previous owner used but it's soft and instantly gums up the sandpaper. Maybe from a spray can of Imron or undercoating. Terrible stuff to remove.

I decided to completely remove the black paint and switched from a sanding block to a paint stripping wheel on an angle grinder and it worked much faster but also gummed up the wheel.

If you don't have any of these disks I highly recommend them for paint removal. They're fast at removing the paint with very little metal loss and not much heat so the metal doesn't warp like with a sanding flap disk.

 

[Flyer58]

It's gonna be 6 months and I'm still not done with the window sill cracks. Other things came up and I needed the workbench space.

So this week I made this bracket to store either the half doors or full doors so they don't get kicked around or damaged. Fun little project. I have limited wall space so I'll be hanging them in front of some shelves for the time being.