(How to) Front Door Lower Hinge Replacement

[Steview]

I thought I’d do a ‘how to’ as seeing a lot of questions about the broken spring on front door lower hinges and just replaced mine today.
Tools required-
Size 10 spline tool with extension and ratchet.
13mm spanner
10mm spanner
T15 and T20 Torx bits and driver
Firstly remove the plastic trim on the wing that covers the top hinge area. There’ll you see a 13mm head size bolt on the top of the hinge.
Now open the door and unclip the rubber wiring harness cover from the door post. Once done you’ll see a yellow ribbon, if you pull this out the post a black zipped cover will follow. Unzip this and you’ll find the connections for the door wiring loom, unplug all of these.
Once unplugged remove the 13mm from the top hinge and you’ll see the same on the lower hinge, with both of these removed you can then carefully lift the door up and off (best with 2 people)
Now with the door off it’s easier to get access to the lower hinge bolts, one size 10 spline on the outside and another from the inside.
The inside one is quite tricky to get to.
Firstly pull the carpet away from around the bonnet pull lever and try and tuck it against the pedals to keep it out of the way. Now remove the 3 T20 screws to remove the bonnet pull and move out of the way. I then removed the earth wire nut (10mm) to get everything out of the way.
Once done you’ll see a black grommet tucked in the corner, mine had sealer over the top of it to give you an idea of how close to the wheel arch it is. Remove this grommet. You then have access to the internal size 10 spline bolt. Completely remove this bolt first. Now mark around your old hinge to help with realignment of the new one. You can then remove the outside bolt and the hinge will come off.
Fitting the new one is more or less a reverse of this procedure, firstly split your new hinge by removing the 13mm bolt and removing the top section as you will just use your original part that still attached to your door.
Now fit the lower section to the post using the outside bolt and your witness marks to line it up. Once tightened in the original position you can then fit the internal bolt and tighten.
At this point you may have to put a ring spanner over the saw shaped bit and lever it to the open position, second notch from the end works best, you can now carefully lift the door back on, you’ll see a ridge on the lower hinge, this should line up with the valley shape on the door side of the hinge, and fit the 13mm bolts. Now refit the wiring and once done try the door for closing. If it needs lifted for alignment you can just slightly loosen the 2 spline bolts and lift the door from the rear bottom corner and retighten.
Once happy with the alignment do a final tighten of all the bolts and refit everything you removed.
Hopefully these pictures will help too.
Good luck,

Steve

 

[Dellmassive]

did you spray paint yours the van colour first?

when i was looking at this, the new hinges come unpainted.

and vw wanted £150 to paint them lol.. . .

 

[Steview]

Yes I had it painted first, the hinge was £82 from TPS and a friend with a Bodyshop/conversion company painted it, but as you can see by the light strip it was painted in the closed position haha, I’ll just have to brush it in and spray some wax oil over it.
You could probably just buy an aerosol on line and paint it yourself just as easy.

 

[Howzat]

Now that is a cracking write up. My door has dropped and started rubbing on the wing so was thinking the bottom hinge might be bent or out of alignment. I tried to realign it it by loosening the bottom hinge bolts then pushing the door back up while retightening and it was enough to stop it rubbing but was still not aligned proper. So I looked at how to get the top hinge off but couldnt get near with the spline bolts not realising you could get to that bolt behind the plastic trim on the wing. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Georgio]

This is a great write up, thanks. Hinge looks same as the 2012 T5.1 I am fighting (the usual broken check roller spring). The external bolt on my lower hinge has refused to budge (the one into the A Pillar) and in the process the bolt has has become a write off. I have a new hinge ready, but no hinge bolts. Assuming we can weld a nut to it and remove it, does anyone know what the part number is for a replacement? Is it a dealer only item? Many thanks in advance!

 

[Steview]

This is a great write up, thanks. Hinge looks same as the 2012 T5.1 I am fighting (the usual broken check roller spring). The external bolt on my lower hinge has refused to budge (the one into the A Pillar) and in the process the bolt has has become a write off. I have a new hinge ready, but no hinge bolts. Assuming we can weld a nut to it and remove it, does anyone know what the part number is for a replacement? Is it a dealer only item? Many thanks in advance!

A little tip to try and loosen that bolt before resorting to the welder.
With the internal bolt removed try and rotate the hinge itself anti-clockwise…either a hammer and drift ( big punch) on the top rear corner or a clever of some sort. Hopefully this will break the tightness and make it easier to remove the bolt

 

[Georgio]

Thanks @Steview.

My only concern here is that if I try to rotate the hinge it will damage the A pillar paint finish and leave me with more to do to put things right. Good tip, though if all else fails. I'm assuming the issue here is stuck Loctite and hence some heat might have helped (in hindsight, grrr!).

 

[ThunderboltFMF]

I thought I’d do a ‘how to’ as seeing a lot of questions about the broken spring on front door lower hinges and just replaced mine today.
Tools required-
Size 10 spline tool with extension and ratchet.
13mm spanner
10mm spanner
T15 and T20 Torx bits and driver
Firstly remove the plastic trim on the wing that covers the top hinge area. There’ll you see a 13mm head size bolt on the top of the hinge.
Now open the door and unclip the rubber wiring harness cover from the door post. Once done you’ll see a yellow ribbon, if you pull this out the post a black zipped cover will follow. Unzip this and you’ll find the connections for the door wiring loom, unplug all of these.
Once unplugged remove the 13mm from the top hinge and you’ll see the same on the lower hinge, with both of these removed you can then carefully lift the door up and off (best with 2 people)
Now with the door off it’s easier to get access to the lower hinge bolts, one size 10 spline on the outside and another from the inside.
The inside one is quite tricky to get to.
Firstly pull the carpet away from around the bonnet pull lever and try and tuck it against the pedals to keep it out of the way. Now remove the 3 T20 screws to remove the bonnet pull and move out of the way. I then removed the earth wire nut (10mm) to get everything out of the way.
Once done you’ll see a black grommet tucked in the corner, mine had sealer over the top of it to give you an idea of how close to the wheel arch it is. Remove this grommet. You then have access to the internal size 10 spline bolt. Completely remove this bolt first. Now mark around your old hinge to help with realignment of the new one. You can then remove the outside bolt and the hinge will come off.
Fitting the new one is more or less a reverse of this procedure, firstly split your new hinge by removing the 13mm bolt and removing the top section as you will just use your original part that still attached to your door.
Now fit the lower section to the post using the outside bolt and your witness marks to line it up. Once tightened in the original position you can then fit the internal bolt and tighten.
At this point you may have to put a ring spanner over the saw shaped bit and lever it to the open position, second notch from the end works best, you can now carefully lift the door back on, you’ll see a ridge on the lower hinge, this should line up with the valley shape on the door side of the hinge, and fit the 13mm bolts. Now refit the wiring and once done try the door for closing. If it needs lifted for alignment you can just slightly loosen the 2 spline bolts and lift the door from the rear bottom corner and retighten.
Once happy with the alignment do a final tighten of all the bolts and refit everything you removed.
Hopefully these pictures will help too.
Good luck,

Steve
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Looks like I will be doing this soon ish. Thanks

 

[Robin H]

Really good and useful write up, that blessed spring is supposed to twist along its length, and the roller, roll, oil it, and as best one can, the roller and hinge pins, keep oiling regularly. Bet it's all put together dry in the factory, and should be oiled at PDI or first service.