front door hindge replacement

So that when I weld the wheel arches in place I get a true line to compare against the door bottoms I’m replacing all 4 front door hinge pins. The doors had only dropped a little from the 40 years of wear, but this movement transferred to the end of the door meant the door bottom scrapped on the arch when you closed it. One of the mirror stalks from the top hinge was welded to the top. This was a quick fix to stop the wear getting to bad, but means I needed to carefully cut off the stalk and grind off the weld to free up the top of the pin. I first tried to squeeze the pins out with a G clamp and small socket hopping the pins would be louse enough to pop out. But quickly gave up to getting the flame thrower out. I’ve been reluctant to attempt this job because of the fear of it turning into a nightmare and ending up damaging the hinges or even worse the doors.

With a fire extinguisher and bottle of water close by and some help from a friend we got the plumbers torch lit and started heating up each hinge. I concentrated the point of the flame only on the upper and lower parts of the hinge as these are the parts that secure the hinge pin in place. After about 3-4 minutes of heat applied evenly on both sides top and bottom, we rested the hinge against a vice and persuaded/eased/whacked the pin out from the lower side. For the first attempt I wasn’t properly prepared, I bent my first punch and lost the heat only getting the pin out half way, The next attempts using a cut down allen key were surprisingly easy, with the pins sliding out and we managed not to scald the doors or burn down the garage.

The next task is to replace the pins and do some thing about the cracks around the hinge rivets. The new upper replacement door mirror arms are 8.5 mm over size, and the lowers are 8mm. my first mistake is presuming the lower pins wont be that worn. The new lower pins slid straight into the hinges and wobbled, so I'll have to replace the 8mm’s to 8.5’s. This had held me up till I can replace these.


Some time later...... Now with replacement 8.5mm bottom pins and access to a pillar drill I was able to ream the hinges to a tolerance fit. This was done with an adjustable reamer, not my first choice but because I was messed about getting the correct size originally this got me through. Adjustable reamers are not the most accurate to use, it took a bit of trial and error to get the exact fit I required, and each pin had a very slight size variation and tapper that effected a tolerance fit.

Porsche brake conversion

Helpfully link below from Vdub engineering
porsche-brake-conversions technical info

After having a bit of a break from welding up the van, I spent a few late nights on the net working out the best option for the wheel and brake set up that I'd like. About 10 years ago I bought a set of 15"x6" Porsche Fusch alloys, I later found out from a friend that the guy I bought the wheels from had said they couldn’t be fitted to a van. Well, with that in mind, I saw it as a challenge. There’s been plenty of bolt on products and fitting kits on the market since then. Some are good quality, some well over priced and others not quite the look I’m after. I’ve decided to try and save a bit of money by getting good quality parts by sourcing all my own, this will mean hunting for the bits I think Ill need and a few modifications here and there. I hope my discoveries will help anybody else trying to fit Porsche brakes. After reading a few split screen van club forum discussions and a few tips from members, I’ve started by getting hold of a set of front and back Porsche 944 hubs (non turbo) and rear swing arms. This will allow me the choice off aluminium arms or the VW type 3 set up I have had laying in my garage. But that decisions for later.
I’ve stripped the Porsche spindles to work out bearing sizes and spindle lengths, I also have a choice of which spindles to try and fit the hubs too.
  • Split 1964 king and link pin drums.
  • Bay 1968 ball joint drums.
  • Bay 1971-ish small stud Pattern discs brakes.
I spoke with Paul at T3D who along with other bits of advice recommended fitting my king pin set up back on the bus replacing the current ball joint beam I replaced years ago from a scrapped 1968 Bay, as it was cheaper then than getting my original link pins overhauled. This is no longer the case as scrapped Bays are harder to find and link pin referb kits are a lot cheaper. Stripping and comparing the parts, to my surprise the spindle diameters are the same, just the length is different, and sliding the hub on to the spindle with the 944 bearings in the hub I could work out what thickness spacer Ill need for the rear bearing.