Bay door rubber hinge life span

[chessie4905]

Now might be a good time to get a straight door from Luke while they are hopefully gettable.

[dtcerrato]

Ditto on the talcum power, not corn starch... .

[dtcerrato]

As I posted on another forum, without argument, IMO on the flip side of the coin, our rubber baggage door hinges have been in service over 25 years. We have noticed some deteriating over time & will replace with spare stock as needed but to alter the design due to isolated causes is ludicrous. The rubber hinge being the only soft flexible component of the system needs geometrically correct upper & lower receptacles to operate normally as designed otherwise it would be like changing an extension cord because the outlet it's in is faulty!

[Tim Bookmiller]

I have a 4106 # 1825 that I have owned since 1998 and have replaced ALL rubber hinges many times and finally going to stainless hinges on all doors EXCEPT the big bay door on drivers side --I have never replaced it --I think it is all in the door aligenment

[richard5933]

I think that I'll have to reconsider my theory on why the door is warped...

After studying (aka staring at the thing for a long time) I realized that the pneumatic/hydraulic lift cylinder on this door was removed and replaced with a manual prop rod about a third of the way in from the end. Looks like someone discovered the problem, but not until after the damage was done to the door.

My best guess now is that the lift cylinder put too much strain on the door over the years, and the way this door was set up every time it was closed there was a tremendous torque applied to the end of the door. I had a cylinder on a small door fail in a way that made closing it very difficult. Fortunately for me that resulted in a torn rubber hinge and not damage to the door. Lesson for me from this is to be really careful when closing doors with the lift cylinders.

I think that this is one of those times when the original engineers knew what they were doing when they used manual prop rods and not the cylinder lifts. If I could find enough prop rods and bottom anchors I'd put them back in all my doors. (I need 4 sets if anyone has extras).

Richard