MCI 102A-3 Radiator Access Door Hinges

[mlh1936]

I need to replace the hinge on one of my MCI 102A-3 radiator access doors. The hinge pins have corroded badly and have broken into several pieces. I can't see how the hinges are attached to the doors. I can see no rivets. Maybe the paint is so thick that it hides them? Can someone help me out with this? Thanks.

[bevans6]

I think you will find that the hinge is resistance spot welded to the door, and riveted to the bus frame.  That's how mine are put together.

Brian

[mlh1936]

Thanks Brian, can you think of any way I can remove the hinge from the door without destroying the door?
Mal

[bevans6]

This is hard to do, actually.  You need to grind away the weld without overheating and warping the door skin, or ruining your paint.  I think what I would do is drill out the rivets, get the door off the bus, really carefully (I would mount the door on my Bridgeport) drill through the welds with a very sharp drill bit, low speed, heavy feed, back with plywood so the drill has something to press against, to suit new rivets, you won't completely drill through the weld so it breaks so you then need to use a cut off wheel in a grinder to cut the old hinge strip between each weld and you can grab the strip of metal and bend it off.  Then put the new hinge on with stainless steel rivets in a size that matches the other side of the hinge.  The problem is the holes from drilling out the welds won't line up with the rivets on the other side of the hinge.

Or I would think about getting the wire out of the hinge and threading in new stainless steel wire of the correct gauge.  That might work if the hinges are otherwise still in good shape.

Brian

[mlh1936]

Thanks Brian. The hinge has been plugged up with corroded and broken hinge pins. Sounds like a tricky job.
Mal

[bevans6]

The more I think about it the more I think I would try to salvage the old hinge.  You can get the old wire out if you try.  I often use small size allen keys as drivers for tricky jobs like that.