REPLACING OLD DOOR HINGES WITH NEW

1. by Steve Stierman (eMog US)
2. by Bill Beddows (eMog UK)
3. by Paul Helman (eMog US)
4. by Lorne Goldman (eMog- Canada)

Steve Stierman

I will share with you how I do it. Take hinge twixt thumb and forefinger and set it on hard surface, vice, anvil, or whatever. With a suitable hammer "shrink" the brass hinge body against the pin, tapping it around from all sides thus tightening up the fit between the pin and the worn hole in the hinge. The brass material is soft and will easily compress up against the steel pin.  Get it good and snug and it will outlast most of us. This is best done under a large shade tree.

Bill Beddows
At some point in time the factory changed the hinges to a "thicker" version. The causes doors of a car originally fitted with the old hinges to foul on the latch plate when the new hinges are fitted. Sadly, the Factory has confirmed that only the new hinges are available.

The difference is in the bend round the pin which gives a larger gap between the plates in the closed position. With the doors closed if the gap between the plates is about 1 mm you have old hinges, about 3 mm is new hinges. I had 1mm machined off the back of the plates on both sides 35mm back from the outside edge. In hindsight 33mm would have been enough but you have to peer very closely to see the step.This solved the problem in my case but if neccessary the latch plate position can be adjusted by removing the lining behind the door. The latch plate usually has washers behind it which can be removed as required.

Paul Helman
Over several years I had noted increasing sag to both B900's doors. When I had rebuilt my car I drilled and tapped metal plates for both doors and door posts so the hinges themselves had remained firmly in place. Clearly the hinge pins had worn and this was apparent when manipulating the doors up and down.  It takes but a little play through hinge wear to create a good deal of movement at the end of the doors!  Removal was easy and the only access needed was at the outside of the hinges since they were screwed into the metal plate I had mades. (No wood screws at all.)

Driving out the old pins took some effort despite their worn state.  I found the easiest technique was to place the hinge over a bench vice opened enough and a bit more to admit the head of the hinge with the top edge of the hinge blades resting on the top of the vice. Then, carefully using a small drift pin or center punch, hammer the pin out. N.B. Hammering the bottom of the pin directly will distort and spread it, rendering removal problematic.

The pins seemed about .250 or less based on uneven wear along their length.  The hinge pin passages were worn from .256 to .260.  They are made of fairly heavy gauge brass and the pins mild steel.

New hinge pins are widely available at hardware store and are mild steel with brass plating and measure .258 along their length to a section .268  starting about an half inch below the head of the hinge. I cut the hinges to length matching the old pins and turned the  .268 segment down to .260. Then I drilled each hinge section held with a drill press vice with a "G" drill bit then pressed in the new pins using the bench vice which worked nicely and needed only some tapping with (a padded) hammer for the final quarter of a inch. This resulted in a very tight hinge not easily opened in one's hands.  Back on the car and no play in the door anymore.

One little kink encountered in reinsallation was the one of the screws into the door post plate came up a fraction of center and woudn't engage the plate hole threads.  There was insufficient play in the door post hole to wiggle it home.  What I did was lathe the screw's  end to a tapering point.  Then it simply guided itself into place quite easily into the plate hole's thread. Overall just takes a few hours and is well worth the effort.

Lorne Goldman
The method used most often in England uses the same principle as a engine rebuild. John Worrall makes oversize precision ss pins. One runs the indicated bit through the old hinge hole to create a fresh bore and tap in these oversize pins. Good as new.

DOORS (Long Doors versus Traditional Doors)
by Lorne Goldman

It's a common question..and so often elicits the wrong answer. In 1997, the company lengthened the doors on the 2-seaters, making the opening longer and unleashing the DDE (Deadly Domino Effect). Some say that the modification was done to permit the installation of airbags for the USA, but that does not explain why it was adopted for all trads, especially in light of the MMC abandoning  the US Classic market. Others maintain that it was a modification designed to allow for more room, but the longer doors do not create more space, save at the tummy area, and, at the same time, the company reduced hip and footwell room by increasing the width of the gearbox cover.
 

Along with the doors, the wooden tub had to be changed, the dash and steering wheel was recessed forward, thus leaving no room for demister vents which began the Era of the Heated Windscreens.

The primary effect was to force the replacement of the earlier simple and inexpensive windscreen, that can be sourced anywhere and replaced without a fuss, with a heated windscreen that is obtainable from the Morgan Motor Company and requires the purchase of the whole Morgan windscreen frame with it..for a cost of 1000£ in the UK and much more outside of the UK..along with a wait of many months. More here. The added length of the opening is 51mm. But useable space in the area is not dictated by the opening. It is a function of the seat, the steering wheel and the footwel space. The simply fact is that stomachs incapable of successfully negotiating a Classic Morgan are more frequent found in the last two decades. The Morgan staff joke that this is the reason the Aeros were created!