ALFAGTV6.COM

Hello,

Has anyone out there ever removed the complete door assemblies from his/her GTV-6? As part of the continuing project of moving the better parts from my crashed parts GTV-6 to the driveable, keeper GTV-6, I want to remove the doors from the parts car and move them to the keeper car. I noted a past GTV-6.com thread (2005) about doing the same with Milano doors (remove the hinges vs. remove the hinge pins) and wonder whether there's any more recent info out there.

The 2005 thread suggests air tool power, which I don't have, to remove the allen bolts from the hinges. The Milano workshop manual prescribes removing the hinge pins, and then if the door position isn't quite right and needs to be adjusted, the manual says you have to remove the front fender to get access to the back side of the hinge (would like to stay away from having to do that).

This is the easy stuff. Eventually the keeper car has to get the engine and all AC components from the parts car.

All advice appreciated.

Regards,

Charlie Koster
San Gabriel, CA

Charlie,

Both approaches have their gains and drawbacks.Moving the doors across with the hinges intact would be the preferred option and be sure you save the original hinges as well. In the process, you would be advised to replace the hinge pins in the driver's door at least as it is likely to be worn and droop when installed. This may require going to a slightly bigger pin size and drilling the holes to match as often they go eliptical through wear.

You should be able to obtain a hex drive tipped socket to fit onto a ratchet drive and simply do it manually. No air tool is required.

If you have never done this before, you will need some assistance during the door install and probably during the alignment of it once installed.

Attempt one door at a time and be sure you fully install it so that it closes and locks like the original. My suggestion is that you do a practice run on the donor car by completely removing one door and then fully reinstalling it as if it never came off. Once you have masterd that, attack the project car and you will know what to do and what to avoid.

Hope some of this helps..

I have done this twice now. Both times I removed the pins, and swapped the doors over. It took me an hour or so each time, and I had no alignment issues, I didn't even have to adjust the loocks either. lucky I guess

Thanks to both of the repliers above.

Regards,

Has anyone had any luck sourcing OEM hinge pins? If not, what was your alternative? I need to put the doors back on (gtv6) and would like to mitigate the inevitable day spent driving to every hardware store in town looking for something suitable.

Best,

Jason

Jason

These types of pins are called "roll pins". For this application they must be of a high hardness grade. It is not an item that you would likely find in a hardware store unless they sell car parts there !!!

Try panel beater supply companies. That is, suppliers to the panel repair industry. These guys replace such items routinely when repairing doors and panels. You simply need to specify the size of the hinge hole and depth then allow a millimetre extra for pin "crushing" to be sure it is tight.

OEM pins would only be of any use if there was no wear in the hinges themselves. For cars that are nearly 30 years old, you would have to have been getting in and out of it via an open window for this to be true..

Hinge test:

Open the door 50%. Grab the top of the door with one hand and the door handle with the other. Now push and pull the door in a VERTICAL motion hard and try to rock the car with it. If the door moves either way (up or down) before it moves the car itself, your hinges are worn. Inveriably this is so for the driver's door. Solution. Replace hinge pins.

Thanks for the info MD. Unfortunately, "The Dukes of Hazard" never brushed off on me and I've maintained using the door It's probably a little worn. The hinges are completely removed so I'll experiment with different sized roll pins.

Best,

Jason

Roll pins (which I think are also called spring pins) are available through a great outfit called Small Parts Inc. in the South Florida area. If you/ve never heard of them, check them out--they've got a great catalog that's printable as a huge .pdf.

Does anyone know what the size of the roll pins for Alfa doors might be? I think they're cheap enough that you can buy several sizes and see what fits right.

Charlie Koster