Front Door Hinge Repair - Suggestion
Hi Tony
As you have figured out fatigue failure of the front doors of Patter 13 are extremely common. What is even more annoying is when they reoccur several years later. Hope to have found two of problems causing the occurrence:
Welding up the crack on the outside doesn't really get the inner plate well attached. The inner plate were originally spot weld in place before the out side door skin was applied. One solution to this is to drill through the outer skin but not through the inner plate then plug weld the drill holes which welds the inner and outer layers together.
The other cause of the re-occurrence of the fatigue crack or a loose feel to the door is a little strange, failure of the spot welds of outer skin where it is folded around the inner door panel. Tried rewelding with a pinch spot welder no good, just enough rust in the folded edge to prevent good weld.
Solution was again to drill and plug weld the three layers of steel as both sides are exposed, drilled 1/4" through all three layers every two inches near the hinge. Then with a brass heat sink against one side just welded the holes up and ground them smooth.
Re-occurrence of cracks also seems to happen when a fatigue crack is just welded up. I've been told that with cracks it is important to actual terminate them by drilling a small hole just past the end of the visible crack and then to actually cut the crack open to a with of 1/16 or even 1/8 of an inch then weld the joint up. This is supposed to be particularly important if the crack is to be ground smooth on one side. What has peoples experience been with this approach?
Cheers Phil
Cheers Phil
|