BeaterShark

Well, I noticed this weekend that my driver's door was starting to sag, so I started to see where the slop was. After a little investigation, I found that the upper mount was splitting.

So, I've just ordered a pair of both upper and lower hinges as I'm sure the broken upper mount caused extra stress on the lower mount. I think that I'm going to have to remove the dash to get to the upper, but I'm not sure. Anybody have any tips who's been there done that?

Chuck Gongloff

The lower's not to bad, but the upper is a real pain. Here's a tip...AND it depends on where the hinge is broken... On the upper hinge, leave the 1/2 of the hinge attached to the car on the body jamb. Tap out the pin. Remove the entire lower hinge. Take off the door. Take apart your new upper hinge, and just replace the part which attaches to the door. That's the part that usually breaks. You might have to make a tangential cut on the head of the hinge pin to tap it out, and tap the new one in. If you want to remove the entire upper hinge, start by removing the entire dashboard. Chuck

BeaterShark

Hmmm, Gary mentioned the same method for the upper hinge. It is the upper hinge, door side which is broken so I could probably get away with that method. But I need to get my HEI tach out as well, so I may be pulling the dash anyway. Thanks for the reply.

DougsL89

I found this task was much easier with the dash out. My upper hinge was split also. Alignment is easy with the dash out. I installed two (opposing) bolts at each hinge location and left them slightly loose (enough to allow movement of the door). Have someone sit in the car with the right tools to tighten the bolts, while someone outside the car gently closes the door while maintaining all the proper gaps around the door. Once the alignment is set, tighten the bolts and check the door fit. Once everything is set correctly, install the remaining bolts. I changed all the dash bulbs while I had the dash out (my high beam light was burned out). Hope this helps! :p:

BeaterShark

So what's the easiest way to get the dash out?

When I put in my HEI tach, I managed to pull the dash a few inches forward and swap my old cable driven tach with this HEI one. The only way I could see getting the dash completely out would be to remove the steering column.