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MG MGA - Door Hinges

Hey all, It appears that the upper hinge on the drivers side door is worn. I have to lift the door to close it properly. Any advice on replacement hinges? Thanks, Tom
Thomas McNamara

Yes, buy a new one. Trying to bush the old ones and install new pins is a royal PITA.

Beware there are two different hinge styles with different opening angle. You need two the same on one door. See here: http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/body/bd103b.htm
Barney Gaylord

I installed new pins in my hinges and used the modern split sprung type. They come in different sizes and can be pressed (hammered) in. Depends how worn the hinges are and they can be carefully drilled out to suit the pin. Not sure if this is an accepted procedure but it worked for me.
J H Cole

Barney I am surprised at you! I too would rather repair the old, you know it will fit and will not need to be bent. It is my understanding hinges were closed up if needed to close the door gap or shimmed to open them. What I know for sure is, when I redid my car,I removed them with out marking them and added into the mix hinges from several other cars.Repainted the best ones and my doors were 1/2" back in the opening. After all those years of VW Bugs I had where just about anything from any year could be mixed and matched,I learned a valuable lesson!
gary starr

There appear to be at least two types of MGA door hinge and in the picture the top one (type B) is from my mid 1960 car whereas the lower one (type A) is from a 1957 model. Notice that there are two different types of hinge pin:- type A pin has a head and the type B one does not. I suspect that the headed pin has parallel sides and the non-headed one is tapered. I tried to remove the pins on the later hinges and failed. Without a microscope it was impossible to tell which side had the larger diameter if at all.

Anyway, notice the other more important difference which is that the type B hinge has a much larger gap between the inner faces, about 3/8" on mine, whereas the type A hinge is about 1/8". With this later hinge there is basically no scope for shimming because the front door gap should be about the same as the hinge gap (3/8").

I would suggest that if hinges are to be changed then go for the earlier type and build in 1/4" of shimming which is what I did after major surgery, replacing A and B pillars, sills, front flitch, etc. With this hinge you have scope for either increasing or decreasing the shimming dimension.

I don't know whether all repro. hinges are the same but the ones I've seen are all like the later type in the picture.

If you look on Ebay right now there are two type A hinges for sale (item 221211795465) which don't seem to turn up as often as the later hinge...........................Mike


m.j. moore

Mike I remember there was a door hinge change somewhere,one that allowed the doors to open further, I wonder if that is what is going on in your pic
gary starr

Gary, Yes the later hinge had an opening angle of 78 deg compared to the 64 deg of the earlier one.

The factory may have changed the design because of improvement in body fitting tolerances over the years and later on there was no longer a need for the generous shimming required with the earlier hinge which must have been a tedious job................Mike
m.j. moore

The MG CSM-'confidential service manual' talks about the need to increase the door opening especially for coupes and recommends grinding the hinge shoulders down a little. I think Barney now has a full compliment of CSM pages for the MGA.
J H Cole

This thread was discussed between 07/04/2013 and 11/04/2013

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