TheSamba.com :: View topic - Borked My Rear Hatch on Carport, Trying to Save Hinge

Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:25 pm

My 73 Bay is running poorly. I was trying to back it into my carport, and in the midst of trying to get it to stay running and making sure I had side clearance I forgot to close my rear hatch.

Good news is the hatch had rust in it already. Bad news is I tweaked my driver's side hinge assembly a bit.

I hammered the old hatch back into, let's say, a shadow of it's former self. It will fit without the hinges bolted to the sides, but the top is hitting the driver's side when I'm trying to close it - hinges attached.

The hinge itself does not appear to be bent, but.. I will post pictures in a bit.

Passenger side:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb158/chicoruns...2f8eb5.jpg
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb158/chicoruns...44a74d.jpg

Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:40 pm

Remove the hinge from your bus and then clamp it tightly in a vise...you can now use a BFH to bring it back into shape so it fits perfectly....you may have to do this more than once.

Wed Aug 13, 2014 1:48 pm

Busdriver79 wrote: Remove the hinge from your bus .
I wouldn't do that quite yet, it got bent by the hatch use the hatch to bend it back, doesn't sound like the hatch will suffer from it.
You have to determine where it bent first, look it over carefully for tiny cracks in the paint, then figure out which way it has to go. From here it appears the curved area where the wire clip is has had some added curve imparted by sitting against the stop while the hatch continued upwards, bolt the hatch back on and trim a 2X4 to prop under the curved part of the hinge when it's fully up (maybe to the front edge of the spare well?), then start to close the hatch on it a little at a time removing the 2X4 and closing it to check your work often.

Wed Aug 13, 2014 8:40 pm

Busdriver79 wrote: Remove the hinge from your bus and then clamp it tightly in a vise...you can now use a BFH to bring it back into shape so it fits perfectly....you may have to do this more than once.

That is a dangerous job, you cant just say remove the hinge... The 63-67 Bentley that explains how to do it, after 68 it does not. but, It would be nice if someone could take pics and pm em them or write out what it says, but no one is willing to do that so far; I know cos I have been asking around for the info for a while now... sad.

Thu Aug 28, 2014 6:29 pm

I got some replacement hinges off of the classifieds here and replaced the one bent hinge.

The old one lost it's lower holding pin when my dad and I were hammering on it. That kinda forced our hand, and we had to remove the hinge.

Replacing it was horrible, but I got it done. I followed this more or less:
http://www.hallvw.clara.net/technical/tailgate.htm

I also hammered out most of the damage on my old hatch. I had to cut some of the rear support paneling out (still need to weld that back in). It looks decent, but doesn't fit perfect. I'll take some pics