How to cure slop in door hinges?

[pleask]

Making progress, got most of the new wood in place on one side and now the process of hanging the door. I have found that the pins (bolts) holding the hinges/ball/spring in place are sloppy. So sloppy that the door can move around a fair bit at the opposite end, too much so (This is my first TC..heck, never even been in one!)

Other than bigger bolts (perhaps metric?) or drilling out the hinges/ball for a bigger bolt, does anyone have any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks, Pat

[Tom Wilson]

Pat, get a replacement set of the hinge pin assembly, which includes all the parts except for the hinge plates. It's the brass balls in the hinge unit that the hinge rotates on; the pins just snug everything together.
See if that helps.
Tom Wilson

[pleask]

Like most things in life, the problem was with me not the car! It was suggested that I had not tightened up the nuts on the hinge pins enough. Just went out and did that and now they are nice and snug, no slop. How ever, once that was done I am not able to close the door with our force for the last 6" or so. The door is not hitting anything like the door frame, it's all in the hinges... when I loosen off the nut the door closes more freely but then the hinge gets sloppy. I'm thinking the hinge needs to be bent, forward I guess but something I don't really want to do. But as someone once said awhile back, "You have to do what you have to do" on a TC

[Max Irvine]

With the hinge pins tight check that the door skin is not fouling the fixed hinge piece on the body as the door closes. When the pin nuts are tight the door will move down and this can happen.

If the door won't close it must be fouling somewhere.

[ian theobald]

My car has similar problem and found ball inside won on one side. If the hinge is done up tight over the worn part then when it gets to turn on the good part it will be too tight. I guess the springs are meant to give some degree of movement but as in my car there is more wear than what the spring should take up.
I have the problem that they continualy come loose so every few outings nip them up till I get them replaced.
If I have door open at right angles there is a huge difference in amount of play or slop compared to when nearly closed.
Just as well they are only little doors.
A previous car I had [Riley ]had worn pins and tiniest bit of play where top hinge screwed to door,By fitting steel plate down inside where window ran and fitting oversize pins managed to raise door nearly half inch [12 mm ].
Also The TC door sits outside the body so no one can tell if it has dropped or if paint on body chipped.
The Riley had a door that sat flush with body so would eventually chip edges no matter how good the fit .
I,m not sure how well TC doors should shut after prolonged use but I just shut softly and give a guiding hand if required as parking on a slope or driveway can alter fit. Ian theobald

[Gene Gillam]

If I'm not mistaken the "bolt" that should be used has a slot along it's length in which the inner tab of a double tabbed washer rides. The external tab is bent up around the nut to keep it from unscrewing.

[ian theobald]

Thanks,I will check as makes sense.I,m basically lazy and so many other things going on that never checked.
When I fit new ones will check the tab washers.
I heard once that in the MG factory they stood back 6 ft and threw the doors on when fitting, lucky there are only 2 doors that need to worry about fitment.
Even the inner diagonal brace is pretty crude compared to other timber doors of that era .
Does the job though .
When I owned my Riley [over 30 yrs ] the doors were constantly changing in fitment due to moisture or humidity and with really dry weather would sometimes not even line up with stricker plates that were not ajustable .
Luckily the TC doors and door catches can easily be altered.

[Julian Evers]

Do not forget to read the Brown Book on body fitment if the door does not fit the hole. Essentially you put packing pieces (I call them penny washers) judiciously between the chassis mount and the body as appropriate. This will lift the front or back of the body and slightly raise or lower the door hinges in relation to the door hole and lock. I recall the time a body shop did some work on my car and took them out. Result ill fitting doors until I worked out what had been done and replaced them.

Best regards

[stephen stierman]

A couple of things, given that the hinges are tensioned with a spring, there may always be a bit of movement unless you compress that spring all the way and lock it up. Why did they use a spring? I am not sure this was the intent of the design given the inherent flex in the chassis and body structure. Maybe they wanted a bit of movement in the doors at the hinge because the lock mechanism seem to lock things up tight at the front. If the holes in the brass balls are worn, you can simply chuck them in a vise with the pin in place and squeeze them a bit from different directions to "shrink" them a bit around the pin.
I do this all the time with Morgan hinges that are just a two piece hinge with a pin down the middle, the holes will wear over 40 or 50 years, just lay the hinge on an anvil and tap the brass area around the pin to again shrink it to the pin. No need to install over size pins etc. etc.
Make sure the screws, nuts, and bolts that go through the rear door timber and hinge post are not sloppy and causing the problem. Also do you know that the same sort of hinge balls, springs, and pins are used in the rear access doors of Mini and Morris Minor Travelers?

[pleask]

All interesting reading. Another way to de-slop them of course is to use 5/16" bolts and drill them all out... no I've not done this but it is an option for perfect no slop doors!

Another thought hit me, the other day a guy on the street asked WHY MG (Morgan etc) used wood to hold the panels in place and I had no answer. So why did all these companies use wood? They had the technology back then to not use the wood but still choose to. Was it just tradition? Pat

[stephen stierman]

As I understand it coach building was a tried and proven means of construction of car bodies over the years, particularly in Britain where wood and the craftsman to work with it were plentiful and perhaps the cost of labor was not so much and production volumes were not so high. The funds to purchase the large presses needed to form sheet metal into sections of car bodies may not have been available to many companies till much later, in many cases after the war. As we know there were a lot of coach builders around who did very fine work that went out of business as trends and costs changed. Wood technology was used quite successfully in the aircraft industry too, note the Mosquito aircraft of WWII. Looking at the US one could find a fair amount of timber construction, but this mostly changed into the 30's, suspect the costs of big presses was amortized over larger production volumes and perhaps higher labor costs. Morgan still does it, because well it is traditional on the roadsters and if you are the only one doing it, it is pretty good marketing!
An interesting topic though.........what say the experts?

[Julian Evers]

Coach building is the only cost effective way of building (low set up cost even if expensive per unit) when you are producing very small production runs. Remember MG's were only built in tens, hundreds or thousands until the TD. Also the T Type was essentially obsolete (cf the BMW 317) when introduced. Presses and so on are very expensive. The body panels of Aston-Martins, Ferraris and so on were hand built right through until the 60's and maybe still are for all I know. The Y Type MG was a Morris clone as was the Z Type so they are all metal.

Best regards

Julian