Well, today has been the day for hinge changing, roped my son in, thankfully. Weather good. Laid out tools, opened you know whose box of tricks, surveyed existing doors, and hinges, then the new hinges, and fittings. ( came in full kit form ). Seems that all hinges will fit all defender models. Mine is a 1987 90, with original sloppy hinges. Be careful to make shore new hinges are handed, left and right. Top hinges have bolt fixing holes for wing mirrors.
First stage, Release door opening stays. Lay an old dust sheet under each open door, then strip out inner door panels. Note, don't lose bits, and screws etc.
Second stage, Try to un-do heavy fixing bolts, Door bolts first, leaving lose to keep each door in situ, We found that the actual DOOR bolts, eight number, were easy to undo, now carefully remove each door, and lean away from area. Out of the eight FRAME fixing bolts, three had to be carefully fine tooth sawn out,( padsaw ), with each old hinge prised away from bodywork with a screwdriver point and a cardboard guard to protect paintwork whilst sawing bolts.
Third stage, Carefully prise out old sprung nut fixings, in door frame, Any that fall down into bottom of hollow frame, pick out with a torch and bent piece of wire.
Now carefully fit the new sprung nut fixings into the square frame holes, and bolt new frame side of hinges with the new shorter bolts, not forgetting to include the supplied plastic shaped long washer spacers. Leave slack at this time. Also refit external mirrors with bolts supplied. Now offer up each door into each opening. Then swing flap hinges onto face of each door, push the supplied long bolts though hinge flaps, fit the supplied plastic shaped washer spacers, now push bolts though each door, retaining each bolt with supplied nut, these can be fully tightened up.
Fourth stage, Now, whilst one person lifts and adjusts each door, second person drives home the frame fixing bolts. Open and close door, If any adjustments needed, carefully loosen off the top, or bottom frame bolts, adjust and re-tighten, any lateral adjustment made by fixing an additional plastic washer spacer.
Now, whilst inner door panel out, give any moving inner door parts a splash of oil, then re-fit inner door panel. Adjust each door mirror, Admire your handiwork
The above work took aprox four hours to complete, including two good tea breaks..at first we were nervous of the unknown ( both carpenters ), but once we had started, everything seemed to flow, must say the only part difficult was the removal of the old fixing bolts, the three frame bolt that we had to saw out was because of the old design sprung nut fixings, these had each rusted badly, causing one sprung leaf to snap off, then creating difficulty removing each bolt.
Excuse this long post, but after a daunting start , I'm so pleased with the results. If you need new hinges,. Go For It.. Quality Kit E-Bay £49.95.
