Viper door hinges

[MoparMan]

The doors on my GTS were sagging and the driver's door no longer held itself opened, so I had the stealership replace the door hinges under my max care warranty. Well, I got the car back and they did a great job hanging the doors, but now NEITHER door will hold itself open when opened all the way. Is there something simple I can check or fix, or do I need the stealership to order a new set of hinges and try it again?


Awesome: this was my 1000th post!

[1TONY1]

Thats strange....have you eye balled the hinges to see if they are new or could they just have aligned the doors (granted that dosn't address the pass door....or maybe you didn't notice it not holding open before)
The two cars/new hinges I have delt with definately held themselves open.

[Vic]

I think you can see the detent device, if you take the gill body piece off. IIRC, The moving part of the hinge has an extension that contacts a spring, and that is what provides the detent. Sounds like your spring isn't there anymore.

[PhoenixGTS]

I think you can see the detent device, if you take the gill body piece off. IIRC, The moving part of the hinge has an extension that contacts a spring, and that is what provides the detent. Sounds like your spring isn't there anymore.

The hinge is in full view with the little body piece in front of the door removed (WATCH the spacer pack on each bolt locations so that the body part will be aligned when you re-install it!) - as a matter of fact everyone should look in there once in awhile and grease the hinge-to-spring interface. What happens with hinges is the spring piece breaks. It is riveted on so you cannot only replace the spring piece (which actually looks like a flat piece of metal - you will understand once you look at it). Sounds like the hinges they installed are missing the springs.

[MoparMan]

The spring piece definitely busted off the original driver's hinge. I found it on the sill and that was when the driver's door stopped holding itself open. I'll take a look for what your guys are suggesting. The stealership wants to just put another set of new hinges on the car, but I didn't want to risk them hosing things up if it's not going to improve the situation.

[viper spray]

You need new hinges , they are the same , left and right , GenI or II. Use white Lith. spray on grease to keep them smooth.

[EllowViper]

I broke the spring steel detent hinge about three months ago. The piece dropped to the bottom of the door hinge (like MoparMan), I opened the door, the piece wedged in between the sill and the door, POP and took a nice chunk out of the lower corner of the door. Now for the fix. I picked-up an old hinge for $50.00, drilled out the aluminum crush fitting that holds the spring on the hinge, drilled out the one on the Viper, removed the hinge on the Viper (just the section attached to the firewall...left the hinge bolted to the actual door), had my wife make sure the door would not fall out of the Viper (simply held it in against the car). I fabricated a bolt to replace the drilled-out aluminum crush fitting (rivet), and bolted the replacement spring back into the hinge. Wala, just like new and if it breaks again, simply bolt in another one. Realigning the door was easy since I simply had to marry-up the hinge washers marks on the firewall to their original locations. I did have the Mrs hold the door slightly higher (to preload the hinge) so that when the door hung from the hinge on its own weight, it aligned perfectly. Took a couple of adjustments, but works great. DO NOT GO OUT AND PAY BIG $$$ FOR A NEW HINGE. Just fix the old one (unless the entire hinge is shot).

[Ron]

Annual lubrication of the hinge spring rubbing surface is a "must do" maintence item. Easily accessable with removal of gill plate.

[mit]

Ellow that's awesome. Thanks for posting that.

[MoparMan]

Ellow - great info. Just to clarify this point, though, when you pull the gill piece you have to keep track of the alignment and shims of that part, right? I just want to make sure I don't jack it up when I pull it off the car.

[Steve-Indy]

Early gen II's (1997) had the shims bundled with tiny pieces of black tape...which really made things easy.

Later Gen II's (2001) were not bundled (at least on our car), so that the shims fell out everywhere. It was not hard to determine what went where, just a slight irritation.

Here is another, older thread:

http://www4.forum.viperclub.org/show...rue#Post540084

and, one more:

http://www4.forum.viperclub.org/show...rue#Post606399

[EllowViper]

I only had shims under two fasteners...the two on the front/lower sections. They were loose so I simply took my hot glue gun and put a bead on the back side, pressed back into their locations, and now I don't have to worry about them when ever I take the "gills" off...I though these cars were Snakes...not fish...