The trunk (and horse collar) hinge has been squeaking embarassingly badly on the 380 SL, and I finally decided to do something about it. (Squirting lubricants did no good.) It was a 12 hour nightmare just to get it apart. Though y'all might be curious about it:
Sunday, June 13, 2010 I pulled the cover off of the gas tank (the front trunk wall) and had a look at the trunk hinges. They look like fat nails going through the two hinge arms and a pivot welded to the car body. It looks like you are supposed to bend a retaining tab out of the way and then pound them out, much like the door check hinge pins. Well, I suppose if they're not all rusty and sticking that's what you do. I pounded a lot while I swung the trunk back and forth, but only got it to move (maybe) microscopically. There's not much room to swing a hammer in there. I sprayed PB Blaster all over it, we'll see if it helps loosen things up. Monday, June 14, 2010 I checked the service manual and I'm on the right track but, according to Job 75-110, to remove the hinge pin you must first remove the trunk lid (75-100) and the torsion spring (75-130). I think, however, that just unclipping one end of the spring to remove the tension on the hinge ought to do it. It doesn't look easy, though. I got one spring (of two) on the squeaky hinge unclipped using vise-grips, with both trunk and horse collar up to relieve some spring tension. With that undone (and I'm not sure how I'll get it back!) I still couldn't pound out the hinge pin. I pried with a screwdriver at the head end, and got it to ootch out a bit, but then I had no more leverage with the screwdriver. I fabricated a fork from a piece of 1/8x3/4x3" steel, and ground a wedge shape into the end, essentially making a custom-fit 'pickle fork' for the hinge pin. Pounding it under the pin's head with the BFH got the pin to move a bit more, and then I welded more thickness to the fork tines and re-shaped it again, and drove the pin out a bit more. (It takes quite a bit of pounding.) The hinge pin no longer protrudes from the other end of the hinge, so I'm on the right track. I ran out of time this morning, however, and the fork isn't thick enough to go further as-is. Tuesday, June 15, 2010 I slit a washer to fit over the pin to serve as a spacer and used the fork to drive the pin out further. That worked, though reluctantly, and so I repeated it: three more times! (The stack of four loose washers is quite unwieldy.) I also disconnected the hinges from the trunk and the horse collar, the whole assembly was fairly loose after the pin came out of the chassis support on one end. The pin's out maybe 1/2" now, but still stuck tight. If the pin would just come out then both hinge arms would come out of the car for cleaning and re-lubrication, but more work will be required to get to that point. I reattached the hinges temporarily to protect the paint, since I'm not done and still need to use the car. Wednesday, June 16, 2010 More of the same. (This is getting old!) I cut a nut to serve as a thicker one-piece spacer, and used it in conjunction with one of the washers. I'm not sure if I shifted the pin any today or not. I started trying to use the propane torch to heat the trunk hinge arm where the pin goes through, that's the tight bore. I ran out of time to pursue it very far, however. Five hours on this little project so far, and not much to show for it. This is very frustrating. With a crowbar fork and room to swing the BFH that thing would be right out of there instanter, but there just isn't space. Ditto a pin punch on the other end. Friday, June 18, 2010 It rained fairly heavily yesterday morning, so I didn't work on the car. Today it was better, so I tackled it again, this time using a small pair of vise-grips in place of the slotted nut. (They stayed put a lot better!) I worked on it for an hour, I don't think I made any progress. This just isn't working anymore, time to try something else. I bought a cheap claw hammer at the thrift shop yesterday, I was thinking maybe I could make a pry lever using it. I cut the claw side off of it and welded it to a concrete form stake, making a long clawed prybar. I used the cutoff grinder to open up the claws a bit to fit over the pin. I have another stake I had flattened one end as a tire spoon, I'll cut a similar notch in that and then perhaps together I can use them to pry the pin out, prying against the spoon with the clawed bar as I squeeze the handles together. I ran out of time to try it, though, so maybe we'll see the results tomorrow. Saturday, June 19, 2010 Finished the tools, tried them. Success? Not even close! The stupid hammer-oid was cast-iron, and shattered even before any real force got put on it, while I was still pushing it around trying to fit it into place. Purest crap. The bar itself was steel, though, so I cut the hammer piece off and got out the acetylene torch and the anvil and BFH. Blacksmith time. Once the end of the rod was red-hot I flattened a curved claw-like shape onto the end, then cut a notch with the grinder and ground off the worst of the misshapenness. With a similar notch cut into the now-former tire spoon I tried to fit it in place, and there was too much crap in the way and the handles were too long. I emptied the trunk, including battery, box, and spare tire. With that all out of the way I could lay in there and see what I was doing, and still fit the prybars in place with a little room to move them. Putting all my negligible strength onto them, forcing the 1.5' handles together, POP-CREEEAK-CREEEEEEEEEEEEAK, I got the pin out about another 1/4" or so. I'm on my way! No way it would have worked with shorter handles on the prybars. I sprayed some more penetrant all over the place and went inside to take a break. I need to rig things so there's no paint damage once the pin comes all the way out, so a bit more thought is required. ...I put a towel under the trunk and horse collar, so that when they come off the hinge they'll land on it. Then I removed the pin. Easily, now that I'd gotten it moving? Hell, no! It fought me equally hard _every_ step of the way, even with strong tools. I can't believe how tight that thing was in there. My tire spoon prybar started bending at the tip, so I cut it off to get down to a thicker part of the bar and reground the notch. Once the prybars were out of travel I found that I could stack a succession of large nuts on the pin. They fit over the pin's head yet bottomed against the hinge bracket, then I could pry anew against the nut stack. I ended up using my legs to push against one prybar, the other was wedged against the battery well. It was still extremely difficult, and took a couple of hours to get it all the way out. The pin ended up bent pretty badly, I doubt that it can be reused. The hinge bores are nylon-lined, I'm really surprised at how this thing was acting. The hinge pin didn't really look rusty either, though it could have been scrubbed off. It's possible the hinge pin was defective all along. In spite of my care I got a small paint chip or two, but they should mask pretty well. Halfway there! -- Jim _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
