droopsnoot
Member
- Messages
- 1,011
- Location
- South Cheshire, UK
This is a photo of one of the tailgate hinges from my 1970s Vauxhall Magnum estate. It has a torsion spring (if that's the correct name) to help lift the tailgate up. To explain the orientation, the bracket with two holes that you see in the top left have the tailgate bolted to the far side of it, and the four holes nearest the camera, near where it says "N/S", are where it bolts upwards into the mounting panel in the back of the roof. The loop to the right sits in a channel in the roof.
I suspect that over the years, the curved part of the hinge has started to undo, because of the opposing pressures of the torsion spring trying to open it and the tailgate being closed on the catch - the white line shows where I think it will now be a little bit "bigger" than it started out. This leads to the leading edge of the tailgate sitting quite high above the back end of the roof, which looks awful and makes for a lot of wind noise. On the first one I restored, I've put spacer washers to drop the hinge down a bit, but that gets to a point where I need to put longer bolts on, because of the sheer number of washers required to make it line up. This is it before any attempts, it may be a little open as well here but this is the gist of it :
I have two questions please:
First, does anyone disagree with my diagnosis here? I spoke to someone who used to work on the production line about how to line up the tailgate, and he said that he doesn't recall any issues of the kind I described, which suggests it's age related, and perhaps down to lack of lubrication over the years. I know other owners have had very similar issues, but equally I've seen cars of the same type where the tailgate fits perfectly.
Second, how to fix it. That curved section is a pretty thick bit of steel, and I can't bend it. If I get someone to heat it up so it can be bent inwards a little, will that affect the strength of it? I was told that when heating something up to release a rusty fastener, for example, that as long as it's left to cool naturally that there should be no issue with it becoming brittle or weak in some way. As you can imagine, there's quite a bit of spring pressure there, and I don't want to make it sit right if it means that the hinge will become weakened. Or is there anything else I can do?
I suspect that over the years, the curved part of the hinge has started to undo, because of the opposing pressures of the torsion spring trying to open it and the tailgate being closed on the catch - the white line shows where I think it will now be a little bit "bigger" than it started out. This leads to the leading edge of the tailgate sitting quite high above the back end of the roof, which looks awful and makes for a lot of wind noise. On the first one I restored, I've put spacer washers to drop the hinge down a bit, but that gets to a point where I need to put longer bolts on, because of the sheer number of washers required to make it line up. This is it before any attempts, it may be a little open as well here but this is the gist of it :
I have two questions please:
First, does anyone disagree with my diagnosis here? I spoke to someone who used to work on the production line about how to line up the tailgate, and he said that he doesn't recall any issues of the kind I described, which suggests it's age related, and perhaps down to lack of lubrication over the years. I know other owners have had very similar issues, but equally I've seen cars of the same type where the tailgate fits perfectly.
Second, how to fix it. That curved section is a pretty thick bit of steel, and I can't bend it. If I get someone to heat it up so it can be bent inwards a little, will that affect the strength of it? I was told that when heating something up to release a rusty fastener, for example, that as long as it's left to cool naturally that there should be no issue with it becoming brittle or weak in some way. As you can imagine, there's quite a bit of spring pressure there, and I don't want to make it sit right if it means that the hinge will become weakened. Or is there anything else I can do?