removing hinge pins..rear doors 2003 astro

[HANKY14]

i have 2 dented doors on 2003 astro...i want to replace from junk yard van...is there an easy way to remove hinge pins...ive read about nightmares...when people tried to do this...thanks hanky14

[d3athm3talh3ad]

did this a couple months ago, and the easiest way i found was to use a hacksaw on the top grooves in the hinges, sawzall in the bottom grooves where the curve of the body doesn't interfere with the blade...removed the door and pound the pins out of the doors, then drill through the tops of the pins and pound the remnants out of the hinges on the van...after i figured out what to do and got the first one done, it didn't take long on the rest...(my donor doors had been torched off, so i had 8 to do) 2 evenings and i was done...you'll need new pins, and possibly bushings doing it this way, i just wasn't coordinated enough to pound them out from the bottom without hitting myself with the hammer...

[VanGeorge]

A friend of mine used an air chisel and put in a pointed steel rod. He placed it under the bottom pin and it came out withinn 10 seconds. I had bet him that he couldn't do it because I had already tried and failed. )maybe I loosened them up for him huh?)

[Herbie]

I haven't actually done it, but I thought I was going to be removing my door pins (to hang a rack from the hinge) so I built a little toolset to remove the pins.

It's basically a big C-clamp, a set of progressively larger steel rods (3/16" dia, IIRC, smaller than the pin, but not too much smaller), and a deep socket that will set on top of the hinge but allow the head of the door pin go up inside it.

The idea was: Starting with the shortest rod, you use the clamp with the socket on top and the rod underneath, you crank the clamp to push up on the pin. As you bury the pin, release the clamp, let the rod drop out, and use the next longest rod, etc., until the pin is pushed up completely. I figured I'd need 3 lengths of rod. The tricky bit is that the C-clamp is only so big, and you only have so much clearance to the bumper on the bottom hinge, so you can't just use one long rod.

[VanGeorge]

I purchased a special tool from Eastman a few years ago that is supposed to be for removing door pins but it is for the front doors only. The rear door hinges are too large for the tool to work on them. I've got a $38 tool (plus shipping) that never got used.

[doyoulikeithere]

I always used vice grips a hammer and a long 1/4 extension to do the front doors.
So far I haven't tried hard enough to succeed with rear door pins, so I just chop the hinges off to keep the doors & pins, before I scrap a body...

I always wondered if the door needs to be sitting at a particular angle of open-ness? But, That Hasnt made a diff to me & I'm just using a BFH so far.

Figured I could give my 12ton press a try on them, this winter if I get bored enough... Lol.