My door was falling off!

GMez12 · 07-16-2004, 04:50 PM

I love the XJ, but I don't think to highly on how the front doors were attached. Has anyone had any problems with the door hingles breaking their welds. My top one broke some time ago.

Luckly (or not so luckly) my '94 XJ was parked out on the curb and someone ran into my front fender. So I took it to the body shop and they were suprised to see my door hanging there when you opened it. They tacked it on and it will hold for a year or so more. I know what caused it was the pin coming off of the little arm found on the middle of the door.

Is there anyother way to make it secure? Can I replace the bushings?

b1gfella · 07-16-2004, 06:00 PM

I had sort of the same problem with my drivers door on my 94 XJ 2-door. The top hinge pin broke and the door just about fell off. It happened when I opened it and that nice northeast winter wind caught it and yanked it out of my hand...snapped the pin. I got a pin set off of ebay (this has been at least four years ago) and just replaced the pin...it's been fine ever since...

b1gfella · 07-16-2004, 07:49 PM

Actually I just remembered I got the new pin and bushings from the Jeep Dealer! Cost was around 3 bucks I think...I just used the pin :-)

zonker · 07-20-2004, 06:15 PM

I have a 95 and have the same thing happening, the top door hinge on the drivers side is pulling loose. You can see that it has pulled the weld loose from the sheet metal. I was thinking about taking it a part and re-welding it? May cause more problems though.

dnparadice · 07-22-2004, 02:57 PM

I was trying to go to work when I opened the doar and it broke off the upper hinge. It seperated at the weld and would not open or close because it was hanging on by the bottom weld that looked like it was about to break as well. I am limber so i used the passenger door for a month (not impressive when on a date) untill I foud a guy that works in a welding shop to weld it back on. It only took him about 1min. when the boss was not around. I bought him a 6 pack for the effort and he said I should come back if any of the others fall off.I thought that welding it without taking the hinge off the door might cause an alignment issue, but it works better than ever. I love my jeep but doors that fall off make me wonder about the design team they have working for them. I thought mine was an isolated experience, guess not.
-JC

b1gfella · 07-22-2004, 06:13 PM

Keep in mind that the XJ design most of us have is from the eighties...nothing seems to be very well constructed from the auto industry during that time. On the other hand, the XJ designers did a excellent job in making sure that whatever breaks on a jeep can be field serviced very easily and very inexpensive. XJ's were made to be beaten down and then fixed to start all over again! The fact that a quick weld fixed a door problem with no adjustments shows this to be true...

mjhicks · 08-10-2004, 03:41 AM

Broken welds on Jeep doors are a problem... My 93 Cherokee came with a top hing on the driver door that had been welded once before and had a slight alignment problem... didn't take long after aquiring it for the weld job to break. A friend welded the top hing again but it broke again a couple of months later and took the bottom one with it! I got teased about yanking the whole door off. I held a back yard repair party and had a couple of friends remove the left fender so the forward portion of the hinges were exposed with the door closed. Had the same friend bring over his welder and not only welded the hinges but added a strip of 1 x 1/8 flat stock reinforcment to both hinges. No more problems and the alignment is better than any of the other doors. Removing and replacing the fender was time consuming but better than having to use kid gloves to open and close the door.

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