The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Seems like more than a few of us are looking for the upper door hinge for our C170s. The pilots door gets the most abuse and therefore wears faster. Do any of you out there have sources? Have you heard of using door hinges from different Cessna models such as early C172s?

JMACFLY

Might be that the (early) 180 upper hinges are the same,except they have covers on them. Probably no cheaper or more plentiful.

Eric

Regarding door hinges...I read in the Association SRAM about stainless steel hinge pins. Mine are carbon steel, and I can see where they have rusted in the past...accelerating the wear. Does anyone know of a source for the stainless steel hinge pins?

You need to be very careful to use the same size as the original pin. I took the pin out of a new lower hinge yesterday (it was riveted on each end) in order to easily pull the door without loosing the adjustment. It was brass and I'll mic it tomorrow and post the diameter. It's possible to use brazing rod I've heard. Plain steel when it rusts a little contributes to hinge problems. The upper hinge is formed then heat treated which is disturbed when one does a weld repair.

I made my removable ringed hinge pins from .091 music wire. They have a ring on the top so they can be easily pulled out to remove the doors for loading or unloading. Makes it a lot easier when camping.

I've been toying with the notion of putting captive nuts inside the fuselage for easy door removal. Doesn't look like it would be all that difficult--put a set of F2000/F5000's on a doubler and rivet the doubler to the skin and former. As I recall, it would take a two-layer doubler to get over the flange on the door frame.

The advantage is that the door could only be removed when it's open, so it wouldn't be quite so simple to steal the radio. Maybe the sumbitch would go after somebody else's. Down side is that somebody who really wanted in would do more damage. I could continue to store the radios in the office when I don't need them.

Get rid of the King radios. Nobody steals any other kind!

I finally remembered to take my mic to the hangar and by golly the original brass pin is .091".

Has anyone replaced a door hinge? Looks like I will need to. I seem to be rusting through were the pin goes down through the top of the hinge. I found nothing in the SRAM about it and was wondering how difficult it is to drill out the rivets and replace with another hinge.
Thanks for any advice.
Curtis

It's been about 9 weeks since I posted the door hinge message. Still no source of hinges identified.
John

John

I think it's because no one knows. You could be a hero if you figure it out though. I had to replace my pilots side hinges a couple of years ago and it was hard to find then. I've seen some hinges go on ebay that looked promising but they were not cheap either. remember it's a stamped, welded, and heat treated part. Tough to make one correctly.

I've got some .091 stainless hinge pin material coming.

Dave,
What kind of labor are we looking at to replace the upper hinge on the left door. Do you have any advice for me before I get started.

I was away from home and tools. Shop time was about 1 hour. It's not a big deal. It's a bigger deal if it were to fail in flight though

Jeff Matthews wrote:I've been toying with the notion of putting captive nuts inside the fuselage for easy door removal. Doesn't look like it would be all that difficult--put a set of F2000/F5000's on a doubler and rivet the doubler to the skin and former. As I recall, it would take a two-layer doubler to get over the flange on the door frame.

The advantage is that the door could only be removed when it's open, so it wouldn't be quite so simple to steal the radio. Maybe the sumbitch would go after somebody else's. Down side is that somebody who really wanted in would do more damage. I could continue to store the radios in the office when I don't need them.

The only thing necessary to steal your radios is tin snips, or hammer, or hole saw, or sturdy wheel chocks, etc. to cut/break through your side windows in a flash.

As been said before, keys and locks only keep the honest people honest! The rest will find a way. I've seen the door pins bent at the bottom which would slow a thief as much as anything. You need to use a Dremel tool and cut off wheel to make it easy to get the pin out. I like that system.