Hinge

Sunday 4th: The drivers door on the FX has been saging, actually every FX has had this problem. After 20 years with the use and weight of a big 2 door design on it, the hinges wear. The current FX it had suddenly also gotten noisy, groaning when opening & closing. Looking at the lower hinge could see the metal bushing was basically disintegrating. These Toyota hinges are not designed to be rebuildable, you’re supposed to replace, at more than $100 from the factory, ouch. Browsing online I can’t find door hinges for a twenty year old Corolla. Decide to try an old trick, often times car manufacturers will have the same hinge on the opposite side oppsite position, meaning the upper right hinge might match this lower left hinge. So a trip to Root’s Toyota wrecking yard and I soon have a upper passenger hinge. As you can see, they’re different, but the same. Original lower hinge is on the top here. It has a bigger plate for the side that goes to the body. However, closely eyeballing it, the holes look the same. I go ahead and bolt up the smaller bottom hinge. It does seem to fit, the door swings better now. It needs some adjustment that is difficult to do singlehandedly. But I manage to get it ok. Could use some more adjustment, but good enough. Trying to put that bigger hinge back onto the spare parts FX to keep the door on doesn’t go as well. It doesn’t seem to quite fit, and it’s not because the larger plate. Oh well, nothing a little monkey force won’t fix. So there you have it, semi-dirtbag auto repair trick!