jhenry06

rear door hinges siezed despite lubriction +++, just wondering if there is any easy fix. can the pins be removed to greases them? my mechanic advised having a body shop replace them.

RacerX

NEVER heard of that man. Are you sure you dont have body damage from a Tbone or something?

jbarr

two things to do use pb blaster twice a day for about a week should free up then once a week after that # 2 you can drill in to hinge be carful to stop at hinge pin and insurt grease fitting dont look to good but it works i work on a fleet of express vans

Mr Gadget

I live in Utah where we have plenty of moisture and road salt.
Rear side door does not get used much and hinges seized from rust.
A body shop owner in the city of Ogden tells me he uses a torch to heat
the hinges cherry red, and then drives the pins out. If parts of the hinge have broken, he welds them back together. Installs new stainless steel pins with grease fittings.

My van has two broken hinges. The lower hinge on the forward side door has one part broken off. The upper hinge on the rear side door also has one piece broken off.

I'm not worried about burned paint, the van needs body work. I had two torches. One propane and one propylene gas. Together, they barely put out enough heat to free-up two of the three seized hinge pins.

A lot of heat and a lot of hammering and twisting the pins with vise grips and I removed two of the pins. The lower hinge on the rear side door would not budge. None of the local rental stores will rent a welding torch. Their insurance will not allow it. Home Depot has a small torch kit for $59.
It uses propylene gas and oxygen. Using that, I was able to heat the hinge to a cherry red and the pin began to move with a lot of hammering.
I did not have a helper, so I had to stop hammering and reheat the hinge.

After I removed the last hinge pin, I removed the rear side door and set it on the ground. The top hinge had one section broken off and the other section was bent outward causing the door to lean forward.

I was going to hammer on the the hinge, so to make sure it kept it's shape, I pounded a hinge pin back in the hole. I heated the narrow part of the hinge to a cherry red and began to hammer the bent section back into alignment. The hinge pin sticking up gave me a good reference of the alignment.

After All the parts cooled, I used a file on the old pins and used them to mount the doors back on the van. This is only temporary, since I still need to buy the new pins. I also heed to visit the body shop to have two of the hinges welded.

Note: My van has moldings, front-to-rear below the lower hinges. These had to be removed to allow the pins to be hammered and also to prevent damage from the torch.

DTrucker1

2003 Cheyy Express W/LFT SIDE CARGO DOOR. right swing open door hinge & latch problem. Spoke to GM REP regarding possible recall . She stated no recall only for gas tank neck and seat belt. The hinge/latch is molded onto the actual door which requires total replacement. Dealership estimate 1000 for repair. This is a safety hazard because my kids cant enter or exit via the sidewalk ..they have to use the driver side passenger side (street swing door) to exit or enter the vehicle.

GM is the manufacturer of the hinge/door latch per customer service . I went on safercar.gov and plan on filing a safety complaint. I appreciate if anyone who has problems or had problems with their swing door to please file a complaint o safercar.gov website, which will be investigated and hopefully GM will recall and fix this safety issue. I dont want to pay a grand, let alone any cashout for a design problem on their end. Any comments or suggestions feel free to contact me @ breedj1@msn.com.
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temtbv

Confused