Front Door Hinge Anatomy - how to put a new one ?

[Atlantic]

So, I found this door I would like to swap out for the door that is on my bus now:

Problem is, that the hinges on the new door were broken out:

How should I do this?

My first idea was to cut the door in the bus out and weld the new door in on the bus. It hurts a little, ''cause the door in the bus is actually pretty good / very straight.
Now I wonder if there is a way to drill out the hinges, put some new sheet metal on the door, I want to put in and then attach it.

Any tips, ideas how to proceed best here?

Thx
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"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

[cru62]

Dirk-If the hinges are the same from one side to the other, I have a pair from an early door that you can have. Perhaps someone knows if the upper and lower hinges are interchangeable from side to side
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[Kyle Mock]

Driver and passenger are the same
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[Atlantic]

[BarryL]

I've seen pictures of those where the repair was countersunk allen machine screws with nuts in place of the rivets. If you get the rivet head drilled off then you can punch the stem through and pull out the hinge

[type241]

X2 on flat head screws. That is the easy part. Fixing the chewed up mounting area is the hard part.

[Atlantic]

okay - great !

If I use the flathead screws will there be there enough clearance for standard nuts on the other side?
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"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

[EDragnDean]

[eschmidt14]

back in 1999 i had a 66 kombi that had a broken hinge and i ship the door to a guy in cal. he did a great job he has a jig that he uses i cant remember his name it might have been rich or something like that he was in hot vw showing how he fix the hinges dont know if he still dose it anymore or not good luck

[srfndoc]

Sounds like Gerson needs to start making doors with new hinges attached. I see a lot of doors where the mounting area has torn so this is probably an area that could be improved upon considering how much stress the area can get.
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[Atlantic]

okay. I don't want to leave loose end (someone else might have a similar issue). Here is my progress:

First, I cut some metal for the ripped out inner structure:

shaped it:

… and dropped it in the door - this was an important discovery: there is a depression in the metal stamping that allows for a beefy piece of steel to be placed here without interfering with the window frame:

… welded it in place- not pretty, but good penetration:

The second step was to put another plate (thinner- maybe 18g) to replace the outer ripped piece. As you can see I drilled it already for the hinge fitment and tapped the drilled holes in the inner/beefy piece for machine bolts:

The placement for the drilled holes I got from the other door applying this little kindergarden trick:

Plan is to drill out the door that is on now and then maybe file out the holes in the hinge a little to allow for eventual adjustment (because the holes on the door are now set). When it's all tight, I can tack-weld the bolts from the back and grind off the heads of the bolts & POR 15.

… will keep you posted.
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"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

[KombiMarc]

Nice work so far, I am sure youll have a bit of alignment to figure out to get the gaps all squared away, but your definitely getting it right !!
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Thanks Marc
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'65 Type I
'65 Type II Kombi Rebuild Thread
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=459009

[Atlantic]

okay then - it's pretty much done. Easy actually.

I drilled out the old rivets. I tried to grind them off from the inside first, but then realized that you cannot punch them thru from there. Drilling from the outside instead worked well:

This is the rivet part inside the door frame (og paint Mango ):

And here is the hinge exposed:

I thought I give it a test try and just bolt the new door on - bingo! that was it. Lined up pretty well.
I used sink head machine screws and nuts on the inside. This way I could really pull it all nicely and tight together. Welded the nuts on from the inside. Even the upper nut with maybe 3/16 thickness didn't get in the way of the window frame - again, I was surprised how much room there is.
The alignment got somewhat out of wack when I tightenend the nuts, but that was due to the upper hinge being bent … nothing a 2 x 4 & big hammer + a fat flat screw-driver for bending couldn't fix.
All this, two 10 min trips to the hardware store, some sanding of the hinges back to og paint, and the full reassemble of the door took me about 5 hours (makes it about 8 Hours if I include the welding on the new door from before). It's a fun project!

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"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." [Voltaire]

[BulletBus]

Wow, that is an awesome repair. I never new those were rivets holding the hinge to the door. Nice job. You must be very happy with the results. It would have taken me a while to get up the nerve to start drilling into my door. Kudos.
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53 Hatch Barndoor
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If it's not a bus, it's bus money waiting to happen.

[obus]

nice work! Turned out great!
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June 1973 Pumpkin Orange Thing aka Othing
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March 1956 Beetle convertible https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10419731&highlight=#10419731

[BDSBSS23]

Make this a sticky.... Many doors are like this.
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58 beetle AKA Black Beauty http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=496780&highlight=black+beauty
65 micro bus (project)
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=522611&highlight=std
Pillar repair with 65 bus
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=530360

[G-wood Todd]

I've done this repair using 1/4 20 thread tapered screws as mentioned above. But instead of using 3 bolts on the inside of the door, I built a plate out of 3/16 steel and drilled and tapped the holes for the tapered screws to go into. The plate added some extra support to the inside of the door.

[GDOG57]

Nice job. I have to do this to my bottom hinge,after some rust repair.
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'57 oval window deluxe,Agave green(L240) 2276cc w/51.5 IDA's
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'69 Squareback (L30A Royal Red)

[EverettB]

[velvetgreen]

I may need to replace one or more of the rivets on one of my buses. Do you mind postig the dimesions of the machine head screw/bolt you used as per