Peerless GT
Gary gets his head around lugs, pins and slots for hinges
Sometimes, being forced to find a solution is the best way to persevere and find that solution. In Peerless circles, that means door hinges. Phase 2 cars used vastly improved hinges. Being a Phase 1 car, mine has hinges that were marginal when new, so 60 years later, it’s no surprise they don’t cut it. One owner in the US has cleverly adapted MGB hinges, but they arguably create other bodywork problems and don’t offer any adjustment. Knowing the hinge issue could also stall my customer’s car ahead of paint, I was forced to get my thinking cap on and a few months back
I finally devised the design I hoped would work.
Farmyard connection
The factory hinges are a simple lug and pin design, but crude and inadequate for the weight of the long doors. My hinge design had to be adjustable and simple, without the need for bodywork alterations. Rural Somerset caters well for the farming community and a local retailer supplies galvanised gate and fencing items for livestock farming. Hinges for such use are invariably simple, robust and capable of carrying hefty gates. Initially they might seem too crude but the hinge pins are three times the diameter of the original clevis pins and the arms are twice the thickness of those on the car.
There’s a variety of hinges available, so I went out and bought a small selection most suited for adapting to my design.
Jig and weld
The first job was to understand how the originals function from their closed position to fully open. They are cranked to push the door shell outwards, away from the edge of the front wing as it arcs round. The initial task was to accurately drill the smaller hinge eyes for a snug fit on the larger hinge pins. I then used a simple angle profile tool to replicate the crank angle required and cut both the threaded adjustment sections and square arm sections to mirror them. These were then placed on a piece of wood and held in position with nails to create a jig for the initial tack welds. It also ensured the second hinge should be a good match. Once tack-welded, I checked the arm angle again before cutting and jigging the pin eye section. After that was tackwelded and checked, all three sections were fully welded. The second hinge was easier, of course.
The large hinge pin was perfect for cutting a ¾in Whitworth thread to match the arm threaded section. This meant the arm height could be adjusted on the pin using shims if necessary and any sloppiness tightened up in future. I had to wait a day for a die and die holder to arrive to cut the threads, so I carried on with the hinge lug
‘The factory hinges are crude and quite inadequate for the weight of the doors’
plate. The hinge assembly is in three pieces; the first is the D-plate (its shape) which also supports the bodywork and is fixed to a chassis upright at the usual A-post position. The lug plate (my name for it) is bolted behind the D-plate and carries the hinge lugs. The door shell bracket plate arms pass through the lug plate and D-plate where clevis pins secure its cranked arms to the lug plate.
The slots in the lug plate were enlarged with a thin grinder cutting disc to accommodate the new hinge arms. The new hinge pins use the same position as the originals on the lug plate, meaning only the lug plate and door shell bracket plate need removal for these minor modifications.
With new threads, the hinge pin lugs were aligned and measured to ensure they were in parallel on the lug plate before tack welding them and checking the measurements. A series of test fits then followed, with the lug plate held securely in a vice while the arms were fitted and operated. Next, the arms were removed again and as all was good with the pins, they were fully welded and given vertical supports (using the old lugs) for additional strength. Lastly, the arms and lug plate were primed, painted and left overnight.
The slots in the D-plate were cut to the same dimensions as those in the lug plate, though this time I used a jigsaw to avoid hot sparks near the paint, glass and interior. Once cut, the slots were primed where bare metal was exposed, primed, painted and left overnight.
Adjustable hinges
The following day, the arms were refitted, this time with copious grease on the pins and shim washers and the nut tightened down. That was two days work already, so the third day was spent fitting the door. Oversized round holes for the arms were drilled using a stepped cutter.
On the outside of the shell, two reinforcement plates were made for the arms to pass through and be clamped onto using an external nut on the threaded arm, spreading their clamping force.
With all that done, the door could finally be fitted and fettled into position.
By now, the door was stripped of its glass, glass frame and regulator for access to the hinge arm holes. The threaded arm now clamps the door shell and allows backwards and forwards movement along its length for the best possible fit. I was nearly home and dry but, without the full weight of the assembled door, final adjustment were pointless. I discovered it would have been much easier to reassemble the door on a bench laying flat than vertically fitted. I’ll make minor tweaks to the cranked angle and to subsequent hinges for the driver’s side and my customer’ s car, but the result was worth the effort.