Pins and Caps
With an old car you’re always on a search for hardware. Or at least I am! Here’s a couple of pieces that I found hard to find, and some other sources for replacements.
Hinge Pins:
Hinge pins are hard to get. They are 8mm Clevis pins with a slot for a clip. Luckily 8mm is only .0024inches different than 5/16″, so there’s another whole world of English measurement options:
Original Pin, New Clevis Pin, New Clevis Pin in Hinge |
Assembled Hinge with Stainless Washer Spacers |
I got my Clevis pins from McMaster Carr. They were inexpensive.
German Club (top) and generic (bottom) |
I took a deep breath and decided to purchase the German Club pins at $12.00 each. They were very nice, and obviously took a lot of machine work to make (an integrated grease channel and grease fitting on the end are not cheap to fabricate).
Too bad they don’t fit! |
Unfortunately they did not fit under the car; the entire assembly was too long. I purchased a generic version of a 10mm pin with 8mm threaded end for $1.35 each from BoltDepot.com. They are not stainless, so I make sure to keep them well lubricated.
Heinkel Bonnet Hinge with Rivet and Zinc end cap |
The come in really handy in another place: the sunroof. The arm is usually held on by a clip, which in my case looked flimsy and fell off. The caps look tailor made for this application:
Heinkel Convertible Top Arm held in place with Zinc end cap |
Another view of the end cap on the Heinkel top |
Have you come up with any unusual hardware replacements for your car? Let me know!
We had to drill out the bolts on our front door hinges and rear bonnet hinges and thread in new bolts. It is a beautiful job now, but we needed a friendly engineer