Back around ten years ago I decided I’d buy my dream GMT800 truck. They stopped making the GMT800, New Body Style (NBS) trucks as they call them in 2006. Even the best kept trucks are already well used. That said the GMT800 is an great platform outside of a few quality issues like these door hinges that wear out. My truck has been plagued with defective hinges since I bought it despite multiple attempts to rebuild them. I think I finally solved the problem though.
What this article is NOT this is not a step by step on how to disassemble your vehicle. There’s countless videos on YouTube for that. Or if you’re like me you have access the factory service manual (highly recommended).
What this article IS I’m going to go through issues with the common fixes. I’ve tried a bunch of them and they DON’T work outside of this one kit I found from Total Automotive. If you want to skip the article, lookup your vehicle and order the part at, https://totalauto.com/
Why hinges wear out
My truck is a 2001 Chevy Tahoe. However, the same parts are used on any of the GMT800 chassis, and possibly some of the newer trucks, GMT900? The older GMT400 chassis had a more robust door hinge design in my opinion. The pin on the GMT400 went the length of the hinge. The GMT800 design cut the pin in half so it only sits between the hinge knuckles. I presume as a cost savings measure as well as making assembly a bit easier.
My Buick has a hinge you can unbolt, throw away, and put new. Whereas both the GMT400 and GMT800 trucks (likely others as well) have hinge leaves welded to the door and A-Pillar. If damaged the hinges cannot be unbolted and thrown away. They have to be rebuilt… Or substantial modifications done to the vehicle; a new A-pillar or cutting the hinge off somehow then welding a new one.
Let’s go back to the GMT400 design. The pin there has less sheer force as it is double shouldered since the pin spans the whole length of the hinge. This spreads the forces out a bit more helping reduce wear on the hinge knuckle. General motors split the hinge pin in half placing separate pins for each knuckle on the GMT800. I suspect the newer hinge design wears faster due to this.
Rebuilding can make your problem worse
The GMT800 hinge design does have serviceable bushings to take the wear. However, to replace those bushings you have to press out the pins which are an interference fit.
Pressing those pins out enlarges the knuckle (hole) on the hinge insert. This amplifies wear forces on the hinge, accelerating deterioration.
Below are several styles of aftermarket hinge pins. I have personally tested the right two hinges and nether resolved my issues. I’m installing the left style in this latest rebuild.
Starting right, you can see the interference fit design is continued (ribbed section). The slack introduced by pressing the pin out is not addressed, leaving play in the hinge insert. Furthermore this design uses a c-clip which introduces further slack by not shouldering the hinge. In effect, this design takes a problem and only makes it worse.
The middle pin addresses this slack / sheer force using a threaded bottom with bolt and washer where you can tighten the system. That seems to get us part way there. It is still an interference fit that doesn’t fix the play introduced in the hinge insert. It was also made from inferior quality materials so can introduce problems we never had in the first place. You can see that the metal wasn’t faring well and I live in the Sonoran Desert where metal virtually never rusts or corrodes!
The pin on the far left appears to address all these issues. Instead of an interference fit it’s threaded! This in conjunction with a newer threaded hinge insert allow for slack to be taken out minimizing that problematic sheer force! This is part of a kit I found from Total Automotive I’m installing for my fourth rebuild of the driver side door rebuild since buying my truck. It’s also far better constructed and from superior materials.
My driver side door has underwent so many poor fixes that the knuckles in hinges have worn out. I was ready to see if a body shop could grind off the old hinges and put all new. Then I came across this kit from total automotive. They called me and explained how their kit addresses all these issues I’d encountered with other fixes as discussed earlier in my post here.
Oversized bushings
You can purchase aftermarket bushings that are 0.010″ larger than factory spec hinge knuckles ID (inside diameter). This is needed in my rebuild as several of the knuckles have worn larger over the years.
The door only pivots something like 35 Degrees not 360. Chances are the knuckle is slightly out of round as a result of that. I presume the ridges on the OD (Outside Diameter) of the bushing allow it to better find center in the hinge knuckle’s ID despite some runout in the hole.
I was able to push the oversized bushings into my hinges with little effort. Only a couple required tightening the pins down for them to slide all the way in. I took that as a bad sign. Especially since several of my measurements of the wholes were a hair larger than the bushings.
My hinge had holes ranging from ~0.4775″ up to ~0.4845″. It maybe worth saving these measurements in your mechanic’s log when you do this job. After a certain point the hinge maybe completely unserviceable.
Bent hinges
I am not the first owner of this truck not the first one to do this repair. Ron at total automotive explained to me most people don’t press out the factory hinge pins. They use a air hammer to do it. This has a tendency to bend the hinges upwards.
Note: He sells a tool at Total Automotive to press the pins out without damaging the hinges! I highly recommend using it.
I’m wondering if that may have been the case with my truck the pin and bushing didn’t want to fully seat in the top of the knuckles when installing the hinge insert. I had to torque them a bit more than I’d though would be necessary. It seemed as though the hinge may have spread a little bit, as Ron described. The inner hinge insert did hold in place on it’s own (without pins installed). I couldn’t help but wonder though if somebody before me may have bent the hinges.
It’s worth noting, I had several parts bin bushings and the Total Automotive bushings. The top of the Total automotive bushing seemed to have a bit more meat on it there. Perhaps with this in mind?
Additionally, when rebuilding the hinges I made sure to put a dab of white lithium grease on all the friction surfaces. The instructions recommend this but it’s not in the kit so you’ll want to pickup a little squeeze tube of it.
Detailing hinges, use quality paint!
I detailed the hinges with enamel paint. This involved applying a filler primer, followed by primer, and lastly a black coat (to match) vehicle. The filler primer was just a thought I had. Perhaps it would help support the bushing a bit further but maybe an entirely bad idea all together, only time will tell. It’s worth noting at this point the hinge insert included in the kit didn’t come painted so I painted it here.
You might like to use two stage paint as the factory does but wow that’s just too much work and money. I painted with industrial / enamel based paint you can find at any hardware store (e.g. Rust oleum). It should be noted, while these paints did likely provide some protection against the environment they didn’t hold up well to assembly. You really need to get a quality automotive paint.
Reinstalling the Door
The door set right back down on the pins as usual. My back not really thankful for having done the job though. This really should be done with a cherry picker and or with a minimum of one helper.
I struggled much more than any of the other times I rebuild the hinges to get the hinge insert to line up so I could could bolt the door on. The previous rebuilds the bolt just fit right in. This time the assembly didn’t want to align. I assume because the door was actually fitting correctly. Possibly the paint got in the way too? It also appeared the door maybe setting a touch higher on the hinges? I digress, finally found a screwdriver with enough girth to align them.
Conclusions
The total automotive hinge kit is likely the ONLY way to rebuild the hinges. The other methods INCREASE the sheer force on the hinge itself furthering it’s deterioration. I REALLY REALLY wish I’d know about this kit when I bought the truck. Chances are years of sub-quality hinge parts in the door furthered the issue! Now my hinges are so far warn that the oversized bushings slide into place. From here I have no clue what the repair is aside from a new A pillar, rewelding hinges, or something quite invasive.
If you didn’t see above…
The Total Automotive Hinge kit is
likely the ONLY way to rebuild these hinges!
The factory design leaves a lot to be desired. I assume they couldn’t get away with a lighter bolt on hinge as the door is so freaking heavy. I’d really like to see though, a bolt on hinge solution, one with a more robust pin design and or somebody design an aftermarket say carbon or fiberglass door (from similar materials to say a Corvette). That would be awesome!
It’s not a matter of if your hinges are wearing out it’s when. And with the age of these trucks, I’d venture nearly all of them are bad. I cannot help but cringe thinking people have likely sent a few of these vehicles to the junkyard with pesky hard to solve issues like this yet had an otherwise good running vehicle. Thank God Ron sells a kit that may save a few from destruction due to worn out hinges!
I’m very thankful this repair went so well. However, only time will tell if the hinges hold up. I’m confident had I rebuild them originally with this kit the hinge wouldn’t have warn so badly. However, the knuckles are so far dug out that I fear they won’t shoulder the bushings well. We’ll see though, if there’s a rebuild kit out there that could hold up to my trashed hinges it’s got to be this one!
What vehicles will this work on?
There are a LOT of them. The GMT800 chassis was the GM truck chassis from around 1998 to 2006. A few but possibly not all of those builds are: Chevy Silverado, Tahoe, Suburban, Avalanche, Cadillac Escalade, GMC Yukon, GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, etc. etc. etc. This same hinge design is used on most if not all variants of the GMT800 chassis. It’s on both the front and rear passenger doors. Best you look up the applicable part in the parts catalog but chances are this same fix is for you if you have one of those trucks listed above.
