Consequences:
I've done both doors on two cars, one v. rusty, one v. dry -- no
difference, both a bear. I don't have either car at hand and am doing this
by memory from some years ago, so someone correct me if I'm wrong here,
but...
The consequences of shearing one of those screws can be severe. The
screws on the body end of the hinge do not mount into the A-post metal
itself or into weld captured nuts behind it. They pass through the hinge,
through holes in the door frame sheet metal and screw into tapped holes in a
thick metal plate that approximates the shape of the particular hinge
(uppers=rough square, lowers=elongated triangle).
Cranking the screws in sandwiches the body metal between the hinge and
the plate and friction is most of what counteracts the vertical force
vectors of the door weight and those doors are heavy!! This is part of the
reason they're so hard to get off, they were probably put ON with some sort
of impact tool and I suspect some sort of lock-tite.
So the suggestion about the aggressive penetrating oil is good (it
worked for me, but NOT until I did it from the rear as noted in the other
reply). And the heating sugggestion sounds good, although I think that with
care, THAT would work much more effectively from the rear of the screws also
with less paint damage too.
But caution: those plates float free in the small vertically stacked
sheet metal boxes that comprise the A-post, those screws are NOT that strong
and at least one (I think the upper) of those two plates will NOT come out
of the access holes (behind the kick panel). It seems to have had the
A-post welded up around it! So if you shear one of the screws on that
hinge, you'll either have to cut into the A-post sheet metal to extract it
to deal with drilling and retappping, or you can try to accomplish THAT
through the small holes in the door frame with a plate that (remember) is
not attached to anything and flops around. Words just don't describe how
impossible the second option seems on being confronted with it and the first
just isn't a good idea,even if you could bring yourself to do it.
Proceed with caution!
C. Hill
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