1968 gas door hinge

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

OK, a related question....

When you have a 68 gas door painted, how do you renove the hinge from the door. More importantly, how do you re-attach it? Same question regarding the cad plating of the hinge itself?

And one more...when you replace the gas door emblem, how do you expand the "spin rivets" to a factory like appearance.

[Joe L.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

OK, a related question....

When you have a 68 gas door painted, how do you renove the hinge from the door. More importantly, how do you re-attach it? Same question regarding the cad plating of the hinge itself?

And one more...when you replace the gas door emblem, how do you expand the "spin rivets" to a factory like appearance.

Ed-----


With the 1968 design, there is no way to re-attach the door to the hinge in the original attachment configuration. If the hinge is removed from the door, then the door has to be drilled and tapped for screws and converted to the 1969 attachment configuration.

If installing a reproduction (or, NOS) 1968-only emblem, I don't know how the "rivets" can be set. I'm sure the factory had a special tool for it, but I've never seen such a tool being available. Under any circumstance, I think setting these rivets would be problematic. The rivets are integral with the zinc diecast material of the emblem. Zinc diecast is very brittle and not very malleable, at all.

As far as painting of the fuel door, if one did not want to remove it from the hinge, then I suppose the only thing that could be done would be to try to mask-off the hinge as best as one could. Same thing for the emblem.

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

That is sort of where I was going with my questions Joe.

I currently own 32 1968 gas doors, in various conditions. I have been "developing" a method of reattaching the door to the hinge, so far without much success. But then, I haven't put much effort into it yet.

Replacing the emblem is pretty easy, the repo emblem is pretty good, but the "peening" of the rivets is a challenge.

I even have a drawing, with dimensions, of the tool that was used at the plant to "spin rivet" (expand) the rivets.

I also have two NOS gas doors, and an NOS gas door emblem for reference purposes.

This is yet another back burner project for me.

I am doing absolutely nothing with the bezel part; just focusing on the hinge re-attachement to the door (and make it look factory).

[Joe L.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

That is sort of where I was going with my questions Joe.

I currently own 32 1968 gas doors, in various conditions. I have been "developing" a method of reattaching the door to the hinge, so far without much success. But then, I haven't put much effort into it yet.

Replacing the emblem is pretty easy, the repo emblem is pretty good, but the "peening" of the rivets is a challenge.

I even have a drawing, with dimensions, of the tool that was used at the plant to "spin rivet" (expand) the rivets.

I also have two NOS gas doors, and an NOS gas door emblem for reference purposes.

This is yet another back burner project for me.

I am doing absolutely nothing with the bezel part; just focusing on the hinge re-attachement to the door (and make it look factory).

Ed------


It MIGHT be possible to replace the integral rivets on the door by using the special low-temp welding rod available from Cecil Muggy. Using this rod, it might be possible to "re-create" the rivets out of the new material. A side-benefit is that the material would be aluminum which is far more malleable than zinc diecast, so setting the rivets would be easier and less problematic assuming some sort of tool was fabricated or otherwise obtained. The Muggyweld product will work with zinc diecast and is capable of producing a strong bonding of aluminum to the zinc diecast.

This is all speculation on my part, though. I've never done this and don't plan to.

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Ed------


It MIGHT be possible to replace the integral rivets on the door by using the special low-temp welding rod available from Cecil Muggy. Using this rod, it might be possible to "re-create" the rivets out of the new material. A side-benefit is that the material would be aluminum which is far more malleable than zinc diecast, so setting the rivets would be easier and less problematic assuming some sort of tool was fabricated or otherwise obtained. The Muggyweld product will work with zinc diecast and is capable of producing a strong bonding of aluminum to the zinc diecast.

This is all speculation on my part, though. I've never done this and don't plan to.

Yep, that is sort of my plan. I got the materials, just need the motivation.

[Jim T.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Ed when I repainted my original owner 68 I did not remove the gas lid from the hinge and I did not remove the original attached cross flag emblem. The repaint turned out real good.

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Ed when I repainted my original owner 68 I did not remove the gas lid from the hinge and I did not remove the original attached cross flag emblem. The repaint turned out real good.

Jim;

That is what most people are forced to do. It still leaves the problem of what to do about replating the hinge. I have seen (and I own) a lot of rusty hinges

That is why I am looking at a method of "restoring" the gas door to an original unriveted condition. The door could then be painted, the hinge replated, and the reassembled with the spin rivet tool. Nothing complicated there...NOT.

[Terry B.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Ed,

Sometime in the history of my '68 the original emblem was removed and the gas door was repainted. The new emblem now is held on to the door with the spin nuts as later years are and the door hinge is painted body color. I would be very interested when you finish your new tooling for the emblem rivits, replacing the spring and removing and reattaching the hinge. Maybe your plan is to provide the service to repair that area. Whatever the case, I am interested and I'm sure other '68 owners would be too. Thanks for your work.

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Terry;

If a screw on emblem was installed on your original gas door, the holes had to be enlarged. This means your original gas door is probably not restorable to original condition.

The holes for the 68 emblem are much smaller that the 69 and later gas door emblem holes.

I highly recommend that anyone with a nice 68 gas door, especially on a restored car, to take it off of the car. Paint and install a 71 and later style gas door / bezel.

Put the 68 gas door back on for judging. Every time you open and close that 68 gas door, you take a chance on breaking something.

I have thought about the gas door rerstoration service, but the logistics are complicated. It would have to go something like this:

1. Owner send me his entire gas door / hinge / bezel assembly.
2. I remove the gas door and replace the rivets, remove the hinge from the bezel, and return the gas door / hinge / bezel to the owner.
3. The owner paints the gas door, replates the hinge, and returns all of the parts to me.
4. I reinstall the hinge on the bezel, and install a new emblem on the gas door. I then re-install the gas door on the hinge.
5. If the bezel is broken in any way, the owner will have to locate a good condition bezel. They are very prone to breaking.

I think (but don't know for sure) that 69 and 70 bezels are the same as 68s, just the hinge is different.

As I understand it, the failure rate on these spin rivets during assembly was pretty high to begin with.

FYI: The gas door was painted on both sides before it was attached to the hinge. You can ofter see the paint color in the spun rivet after it was attached to the hinge.

One other possibility is to manufacture a quantity of the spin rivet tools. It is just a strange ball shape on the end of a shaft. You put it into a drill press to expand the rivets.

I could provide that tool with a set of instructions.

I suspect that manufacturing the tool in any quantity would not be cheap.

[Robert M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

My November 67 build car has the spring.

[Dick W.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Out of curiosity. How does the repro bezel and door compare? I know that I sold quite a few when I had the parts business

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Out of curiosity. How does the repro bezel and door compare? I know that I sold quite a few when I had the parts business

I was not aware that there is a repo door. I am aware of the repo bezel, and the repo emblem.

The first batch of emblems not so good. The later ones were very nice, actually a bit too nice.

[Dick W.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

I meant bezel and hinge Pedro

[Edward M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Just so everoyone is clear, the rivets on the 68 gas door are one time use rivets. They are cast into the door itself. Here is a pic of an NOS door with the rivets unexpanded.

[Robert M.]

Re: 1968 gas door hinge

Hello Ed;
I read your posts with interest, if you'll send me the drawing of the spin rivet tool I'll make one for you and me to your print. I purchased a repro emblem for my gas door which I have to install. Bob