After 275,000 miles of opening and closing the doors on the 63 Studebaker Avanti the upper hinge pins, bushings and mounting plates and threads have gotten loose. Here is how we repaired it.
Start by marking out where the cut will be made in the fiberglass door skin for the access hole to the mounting plate.
Make sure to keep the cutout piece so you can glass it back in.
Now remove the threaded plate that holds the door to the hinge. It floats in a metal pocket.
We sand blasted, painted and repaired the threads in the plate.
Here we held the plate in place with the mounting bolts then secured the metal cage with a couple of rivots.
Finally, we glassed the inner door panel with long strand fiberglass. Now we are on to the door hinges.
Start by documenting the hinge configuration so you don’t get the direction of the pin mixed up.
We used the shop press and a socket to push the pin out of the hinge.
Then we used a screw driver to pound out brass bushings.
Finally assemble the hinge and pound the pin back into the hinge.
The doors on the 63 Studebaker Avanti should be good for another 275,000.