50LTRv8
Member
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2007
- Messages
- 642
- Reaction score
- 18
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Canberra
- Members Ride
- VT V8 Calais
This document is hopefully helpful to those who want to remove their doors off a commodore. I had been trying to get my doors off my VQ for about 3 weeks using methods from Savage1987 and Dayvo they either would not budge or I was causing more damage to the car than I wanted too.
After I got the tool from my local Auto Pro for $58, within a couple of hours I had all four doors off and I was a happy man. Be aware that Repco was going to charge me nearly $90 for the same thing, but after the hours I spent trying to get them off, it is still a reasonable price to pay, better yet they are cheaper off ebay.
All three methods have one thing in common. You will need to soak the hinges in WD40 or something similar to try and loosen up the pin which will require less effort to hit out. Another hint, if you are removing all four doors, remove your front guards first. This will enable you to gain access to the front door hinges while keeping the doors closed, then you can actually do this as a one man job, because it won’t fall out. Then after removing the front doors, you will again have easy access to the rear doors.
Just a quick rundown in the issues I faced with the other methods. When using Savage1987’s method, I quite quickly crushed the end I was trying to hold onto with the vice grips. This turned out to be a pain, the grips just slid off for one and I could no longer use this method on this pin. The other issue is that it is very tight for room as the bottom pin goes up and the top pin goes down and the curving of the door makes it hard to get anything in there to hit the pin with.
For the job you will need the following.
One heavy hammer, pref with a narrow head.
Pin removal tools
You will get three sizes of pins with your kit, the largest is the one you want. The pin has two ends, one unscrews and the other is fixed. Insert the pin into the hinge so that the fixed end is towards the middle of the door. The top pin will be hit down and the bottom pin will be hit up.
Push the tool all the way through the pin until you see some thread, attach the nut to the pin so that all the thread is covered
Take the bar part of the tool kit and you will see a hole cut at one end, this slides in above the fixed end of the pin and gives you a spot to hammer. Give it some good hard hits, if it doesn’t budge, try some more WD-40 and leave it a couple of hours or so and try again.
After a little while you should see the pin slide and hopefully soon you will end up with this result.
One down, 7 more to go :thumbsup:
After I got the tool from my local Auto Pro for $58, within a couple of hours I had all four doors off and I was a happy man. Be aware that Repco was going to charge me nearly $90 for the same thing, but after the hours I spent trying to get them off, it is still a reasonable price to pay, better yet they are cheaper off ebay.
All three methods have one thing in common. You will need to soak the hinges in WD40 or something similar to try and loosen up the pin which will require less effort to hit out. Another hint, if you are removing all four doors, remove your front guards first. This will enable you to gain access to the front door hinges while keeping the doors closed, then you can actually do this as a one man job, because it won’t fall out. Then after removing the front doors, you will again have easy access to the rear doors.
Just a quick rundown in the issues I faced with the other methods. When using Savage1987’s method, I quite quickly crushed the end I was trying to hold onto with the vice grips. This turned out to be a pain, the grips just slid off for one and I could no longer use this method on this pin. The other issue is that it is very tight for room as the bottom pin goes up and the top pin goes down and the curving of the door makes it hard to get anything in there to hit the pin with.
For the job you will need the following.
One heavy hammer, pref with a narrow head.
Pin removal tools
You will get three sizes of pins with your kit, the largest is the one you want. The pin has two ends, one unscrews and the other is fixed. Insert the pin into the hinge so that the fixed end is towards the middle of the door. The top pin will be hit down and the bottom pin will be hit up.
Push the tool all the way through the pin until you see some thread, attach the nut to the pin so that all the thread is covered
Take the bar part of the tool kit and you will see a hole cut at one end, this slides in above the fixed end of the pin and gives you a spot to hammer. Give it some good hard hits, if it doesn’t budge, try some more WD-40 and leave it a couple of hours or so and try again.
After a little while you should see the pin slide and hopefully soon you will end up with this result.
One down, 7 more to go :thumbsup:
.
