Rubber Hinge replacement

[NJT5047]

FWIW, another good lubricant is wire pull lube.  It's slick, won't dry out rapidly like soap.  It's the stuff used to pull wire thru conduit.  Really slimes things up. 
JR

[David Anderson]

I wanted to bounce this to the top as I used the thread to help me replace my eagle bay door rubber hinges.  It has the best information in the searches for baggage door hinges, so it's good technical archive material.

Man, this was a job, harder than replacing the driver's windshield

I bought the rubber from IBP in Florida.  I made me a rack to hold the door in position.  I removed the hardware and screws in each end of the rubber on the door and the bus bay, then cut the rubber and removed the door.  That is where the fun began.  I cut, sliced, picked, and finally used an angle grinder to get the rubber out.  It took me over 2 hours per door to get the rubber out.  It vulcanizes itself to the aluminum.  I used dremel wheels and sandpaper to polish it up.  I had good success by folding a drill bit into the sandpaper to run through the slot. 

A strong suggestion:  cut you a piece of the hinge about 1.5" long.  When you can slide it through both tracks DRY it is clean enough to get the whole hinge in with veggie oil.  I put it on the bus first feeding it from the open slot  track center  pulling it in left side then right side.  I pulled it through and cut off any excess.  PUT THE SCREWS IN. 

I had to have a friend help with the door.  We dragged the homebrew rack with the door over to the edge of the door opening at the rubber end, oiled it up and it slid on.  It took some time and a few retries.  Each door install had its own set of issues.  The last one we had to reverse the install and go from back to front because the rubber kept pulling out of the screws for some reason.

It took about 3 hours for each door.  I only had to do the curbside.  I've been ignoring this for 2 years because I've been dreading it, but they were tearing more and more. 

David