Door Hinge Bushing Long-Term

jrcotner

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New Ulm, MN
I need to replace the rusted door hinge bushings on my '05 Rubicon, and have read a number of posts on which are preferred and why. But I haven't seen anything on how well either bronze or delrin perform over the long-term. What has been the experience of either bronze or delrin, or some other material, at the five-year mark? I don't want to have to replace these things every couple of years and would rather spend more money up front and get something that will hold up.
 
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I have a better feeling for delrin being easier to replace in 5 years so I won't mind if they only last that long. The bushings that were in it were hard enough to remove that the lower hinges came loose and I had to remove them and hammer the bushing out on the bench, which chipped the paint so I have to repaint them. I'll replace them more often if there's a better chance of painting not being part of the process.
 
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I have a better feeling for delrin being easier to replace in 5 years so I won't mind if they only last that long. The bushings that were in it were hard enough to remove that the lower hinges came loose and I had to remove them and hammer the bushing out on the bench, which chipped the paint so I have to repaint them. I'll replace them more often if there's a better chance of painting not being part of the process.

A lot of the lifespan is determined by the proper alignment of the upper and lower hinge pins that seat in the lower bushing. If they are on the same long axis without any misalignment, there is no reason for them to ever wear out in acetyl. The cycle life is only a few 1000 swings which that plastic can handle easily. The rest of the time, the latch is holding up the back of the door so the lateral loading of the bushing is very minor. Get any of that wrong and there is no way to predict a lifespan except that the worse the alignment, the shorter it will be.
 
A lot of the lifespan is determined by the proper alignment of the upper and lower hinge pins that seat in the lower bushing. If they are on the same long axis without any misalignment, there is no reason for them to ever wear out in acetyl. The cycle life is only a few 1000 swings which that plastic can handle easily. The rest of the time, the latch is holding up the back of the door so the lateral loading of the bushing is very minor. Get any of that wrong and there is no way to predict a lifespan except that the worse the alignment, the shorter it will be.

My full door hinges don't appear to have ever been off so they should be good, or at least as straight as they were from the factory, but I'll be painting my half doors in the next few days so now is the time; do you have any tips or tricks to achieve that alignment? I have placed them to work in the tub side hinges that fit my full doors, so they're close but it's not an interference fit so there could still be some misalignment that I can't see or feel.
 
Thanks for the info. Do you know if the delrin bushings are tighter on on the hinge pins? I had some cheapo after market bushings and there is some slop between them and the door hinge pins.
 
My full door hinges don't appear to have ever been off so they should be good, or at least as straight as they were from the factory, but I'll be painting my half doors in the next few days so now is the time; do you have any tips or tricks to achieve that alignment? I have placed them to work in the tub side hinges that fit my full doors, so they're close but it's not an interference fit so there could still be some misalignment that I can't see or feel.

Easy and accurate is to slide a straight rod through the upper and lower holes of the correct diameter and adjust until they are on axis correctly. Then set the doors in and let them tell you if the hinges are straight in the holes by how hard they are to remove.
 
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Thanks for the info. Do you know if the delrin bushings are tighter on on the hinge pins? I had some cheapo after market bushings and there is some slop between them and the door hinge pins.

I don't feel any slop in them moving the door around, the way I did with the original bushings. However, if I take a loose hinge not mounted to a door, and drop it in, there's definitely still some slack, so I feel like they could be tighter.

Easy and accurate is to slide a straight rod through the upper and lower holes of the correct diameter and adjust until they are on axis correctly. Then set the doors in and let them tell you if the hinges are straight in the holes by how hard they are to remove.

ok, that's about what I figured. I thought about sliding a rod through the door side hinges as well but I've never pounded a hinge pin out and don't know how hard it is to do without ruining them.
 
I don't feel any slop in them moving the door around, the way I did with the original bushings. However, if I take a loose hinge not mounted to a door, and drop it in, there's definitely still some slack, so I feel like they could be tighter.
If there's more play with one hinge than two, then they're not aligned.
 
Also, I had to remove the driver side lower hinge to drill out the old bushing, and there was some sort of caulk keeping gunk from getting to the unfinished metal underneath. What is that stuff? I'm inclined to at least prime the metal underneath the hinge, but the caulk stuff seemed to do its job since the raw metal looked absolutely pristine.
 
I got the TMR door bushings last week. Their removal tool worked on the upper hunge bushings but I had to drill out the passenger side lower hinge bushing. I carefully pressed in all of the new bushings and slid in the doors. The doors fit snugly and door wobble disappeared. And I can now take off my doors without rupturing anything important.
 
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Regardless of the material that you choose, I wish you good luck finding the correct size for your hinges on the first try.
Based solely upon the year of our Jeep, I ordered 2 different sets before I found the correct ones.
I ended up using calipers to measure the hinges and finally got a set of Delrin ones that fit on the 3rd try.
I'm not sure why suppliers of these don't know what they fit.

To answer your question, I ended up with Delrin & they have held up for about 3 years w/o issue.
They do tend to come out of the hinge with the door once in a while, so keep your eye on that or you could lose them.