The anatomy of your Ghia's hinges

[copellos]

I'll take them I'm almost out..

[Mellow Yellow 74]

Some of my hinges had cracks in the corners so I bought a few used ones on eBay and pressed the pins out of all of them and chose the best ones so I have a full set of decent hinge pieces.

I remove the old bushes (which involved drilling and filing the ends off then pressing them out) and found that although the pin diameters are the same on all hinges, the outside diameter of some of the bushing holes are different on otherwise identical looking hinge pieces.

Also, some bushing holes are flat on the end, some have a shallow countersunk hole, some have a medium countersunk hole and some have a deep countersunk hole with a step.

Therefore as John Copello has tried to say a couple of times on this third you can't just assume that you can buy off the shelf bushes and they will fit. You might be lucky and they do fit but in my experience this was not the case.

A couple of other observations on the hinges I disassembled:

- some pins had a mushroom had and some didn't on otherwise identical hinges (apart from the bushings)

- the original bushings had splines on them to help hold them in position.

I ended up buying a set from John Copello and they were delivered quickly and are very nicely refurbished - thanks John.

The upper hinges have a reinforcement piece added on one side which my original hinges didn't have and I haven't seen on photos on the web - John described these as the safety type hinges.
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1962 Karmann Ghia
1974 Deluxe Microbus
1985 Caravelle (Vanagon)

[hondatriker]

My 74 Ghia did not use that Bunting number. Bushings had to be machined outside and the top flange. Installed and then ID. with a reamer to fit the pin.
There are plastic plug at the top of the pins. Remove and put drops of oil in it. Its a little oil pot. When putting pins back in they go flush to the bottom of hole.

[hondatriker]

Chang the screws to allen wench drive. At hardware stores about 80 cents each. You will really like it.