REPLACING OLD DOOR HINGES WITH NEW

1. by Bill Beddows (eMog UK)
2. by Paul Helman (eMog US)
3. by Lorne Goldman (eMog-Canada)

At some point in time the factory changed the hinges to a "thicker" version. The causes doors of a car originally fitted with the old hinges to foul on the latch plate when the new hinges are fitted. Sadly, the Factory has confirmed that only the new hinges are available.

The difference is in the bend round the pin which gives a larger gap between the plates in the closed position. With the doors closed if the gap between the plates is about 1 mm you have old hinges, about 3 mm is new hinges. I had 1mm machined off the back of the plates on both sides 35mm back from the outside edge. In hindsight 33mm would have been enough but you have to peer very closely to see the step.This solved the problem in my case but if neccessary the latch plate position can be adjusted by removing the lining behind the door. The latch plate usually has washers behind it which can be removed as required.

Paul Helman
Over several years I had noted increasing sag to both B900's doors. When I had rebuilt my car I drilled and tapped metal plates for both doors and door posts so the hinges themselves had remained firmly in place. Clearly the hinge pins had worn and this was apparent when manipulating the doors up and down.  It takes but a little play through hinge wear to create a good deal of movement at the end of the doors!  Removal was easy and the only access needed was at the outside of the hinges since they were screwed into the metal plate I had mades. (No wood screws at all.)

Driving out the old pins took some effort despite their worn state.  I found the easiest technique was to place the hinge over a bench vice opened enough and a bit more to admit the head of the hinge with the top edge of the hinge blades resting on the top of the vice. Then, carefully using a small drift pin or center punch, hammer the pin out. N.B. Hammering the bottom of the pin directly will distort and spread it, rendering removal problematic.

The pins seemed about .250 or less based on uneven wear along their length.  The hinge pin passages were worn from .256 to .260.  They are made of fairly heavy gauge brass and the pins mild steel.

New hinge pins are widely available at hardware store and are mild steel with brass plating and measure .258 along their length to a section .268  starting about an half inch below the head of the hinge. I cut the hinges to length matching the old pins and turned the  .268 segment down to .260. Then I drilled each hinge section held with a drill press vice with a "G" drill bit then pressed in the new pins using the bench vice which worked nicely and needed only some tapping with (a padded) hammer for the final quarter of a inch. This resulted in a very tight hinge not easily opened in one's hands.  Back on the car and no play in the door anymore.

One little kink encountered in reinsallation was the one of the screws into the door post plate came up a fraction of center and woudn't engage the plate hole threads.  There was insufficient play in the door post hole to wiggle it home.  What I did was lathe the screw's  end to a tapering point.  Then it simply guided itself into place quite easily into the plate hole's thread. Overall just takes a few hours and is well worth the effort.

The method used most often England by professionals in the know uses the same principle as a engine rebuild. John Worrall makes slightly oversize replacement stainless steel door hinge pins. One runs the indicated bit through the old hinge hole to create a fresh bore and tap in these oversize pins. Good as new! Sadly, most people are unaware of this most simple of fixes. Instead, consider switching to polished stainless hinges, a forever solution.

DOORS (or Long Doors versus Traditional Doors or the Truth About Long Doors or Morgan 2-Seater Roadster Doors From 1959)
by Lorne Goldman

There is much confusion about "long door" cars..introduced by the Factory in 1998, a Charles Morgan initiative. They are agressively sold to used Morgan buyers as being more spacious. But what is the truth?  

Problem is, there are a number of doors even two major differences in long doors. 1998 to 2006 and 2006 to the present. 

Pre-Long Door

Since 1959 (GoMoG deals only with Classic 4-wheelers from 1950 to 2003/4). From 1950 to 1998, the doors and the structure of the 2-seater Roadsters remained pretty much the same..and the eliminated most of the GoMoG Deadly Domino Effect...(namely they had worked the sequential bugs out).  If one wanted more room, a special request to the Factory could be made to provide that. EXPERTS PANEL Cars are not put together casually...the good ones are a painstaking blend of harmoniously interacting parts and design. If one alters anything, the DDE begins. 

August 1997-2006

In 1998, Charles Morgan insisted on presenting a new door called "the long door", part of an effort to create more interior space and a greater ease of entering and exiting. Sadly, the "long door" is only bit longer at the top which will only assist those withvery large buttocks to enter. Inside the car, the steering wheel was pushed forward by recessing the dash and shortening the steering column in the area. 

1. The wooden tub had to be changed, the dash and steering wheel was recessed forward, thus leaving no room for demister vents (all Morgans from October 1975 to the Era of the Heated Windscreens. That is one of the easiest ways of determining what era your post 1975 Morgan falls in, do you have demister vents? If not, you have a long door car. That effect was to force the replacement of the earlier simple and inexpensive windscreen, that can be sourced anywhere and replaced without a fuss, with a heated windscreen that is obtainable from the Morgan Motor Company only and requires the purchase of the whole Morgan windscreen frame with it..for a cost of 1000£ in the UK and much more outside of the UK..along with a wait of many months. More here. The added length of the top of the door opening is 51mm (the bottom of the door remains the same). But useable space in the area is not dictated by siz of the top of the door. It is a function of the seat, the steering wheel and the footwell space. 

The Morgan staff used to joke that this is the reason the Aeros were created! Sadly, by pushing the windscreen and dash forward eliminated the space for demister vents and Morgan was forced to adopt an unusual heated windscreen..which is very costly, a bespoke part from Morgan only and often back ordered from 1998 to present. It replaced the previous easy-to-replicate-anywhere piece of school bus glass (aka safety glass which is a laminated to a stick clear membrane that prevents shattering.

2. Cantilevered WeightThe longer doors add extra weight at the top end of the door. This puts added pressure on the hinge post, a weak point on the car, which soon had to be buttressed with added metal pieces on the wood to unknown effect over time. Between the weakened area and some ill-chosen (but cheaper) pot metal windcreen posts (that quickly rotted horribly, the ill-fated 4/4 Sports between 2009 and 2012, suffered a plague of cracked heated windscreen. 

3. Gearbox Cover  At the same time, the production department of the day (under Steve Morris) decided to make the gearbox cover easier to make. Rather than continuing to hand fashion the traditionaly-shaped cover for a significant space saving in the foot well, the squared off the cover..thereby losing approximately 3cm in each of the occupants' foot spaces and leg area. This is very problematic for the driver's throttle. 

4. The New Sidescreens  The longer doors needed longer windscreens. And, in 2006, the Factory made the parcel shelf space where they were stored when unused for generations smaller and they could no longer fit discretely in the parcel compartment behind the seats. That left Morgans most sublime feature of all, its lovely silouette, prejudiced. If you want to take windscreens with you and travel with your top down, they must be placed in the passenger's seat (ugh) of dragged about handing on rear off a luggage rack (whether the luggage rack is needed or not!). Most of the cogniescenti remove the luggage rack when not in use..takes seconds if you leave the lower brackets on and the car looks much better unless you wish to hang you wash on the empty rack and let it dry in the wind. (we have actually done that in an emergency once..a flash torrent on the Ohio River!!) 

Around this time, the Factory added the measures they took (upon request) in the pre-1998 times. They removed the obstructive crossmember at the back of the seats, flipped it over, and replaced it UNDER the car. This eliminated one of the barriers to moving the seat backwards. They also reduced the parcel shelf space...leaving even less room to store side screens. They also found new seats that would clear the rear leaf springs posts. Frankly, this was long overdue. Non-invasive, no DDE and can be reversed in the sense that the seats can still be moved forward if wanted. However, the prejudice caused by the unnecessary and critical modification described in the first section, remain. 

WATCHPOINT: To give owners some perspective to what this all means, my wife and I are known as long distance moggers. Between our three Morgans, we spend 4-5 months traveling North America, Britain and the European Continent every year for the last 25 years. We would take the clothing needed, key parts and a full set of tools. We could pack all that, plus top, tonneau and sidescreens and two Gladstone overnight bags in the parcel shelf and a period looking hard case on the rear luggage rack. We could not have done that with a Long Door Morgan. Can you imagine the difference that would have meant for our lives?!!

SUMMARY  

The long doors of the first era sacrificed simplicity and created, (for most models) LESS SPACE RATHER THAN MORE  also at a cost of wood tub strength and the sacrifice of an easy-to-replace-anywhere-anytime windscreen. I recommend these cars only to those of us with a large bum and breasts. Sadly, the last cars shipped to North America were primarily those made in the first long door era. 1998-2006. Yet dealers and owners alike there recommend the long doors as they believe the tales that they have more space....which simply isn't true..quite the opposite unless you are speaking to models that have not seen North America in decades. And one has to be very tall to require more space than what was there and there are smart ways of creating it without throwing the baby out with the bath water. Peter Morgan was very tall and never saw a need for them. 

Ergo, are the first long doors (1998-2006) worth the hype? I am afraid not. Even the second generation are a HIGH price to pay for the domino effects described above. I refused them when the Factory re-created my car in 2002 and saved 1000s in my use of the car since along with countless vacations.

ADJUSTING THE DOOR LATCH (making sure it closes easily and holds without rattling)

I was saddened to see that even the most simple of Morgan tasks are now beyond the acumen of a community once known for being the most mechanically enabled of all marques.

Like so many things on traditional Morgans and in this area, all cars, the door closure is adjustable. The holding bolts are in slots, both up and down. They can be seen and accessed easily enough when opening the door and examining the striker plate but they cannot be trightened unless one can access the rear nuts. This can be done by unscrewing the quarter panel covering them, which will also entail removing the side panel to the rear of the door to hold the relevant nut. Loosen all nuts and then fiddle it into a position that suits you and safety. Sdly, you will have to tighten these nuts/bolts so that when closing to the door to test them, you do not alter their position