Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => Body, interior, paint, chrome, and cosmetic items => Topic started by: dirkbalter on February 19, 2017, 01:11:26
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Hello.
I am restoring my door hinges. In the process, the grease nipples of the lower hinges came off. It appears that these were pressed in originally.
I tried to reinstall them but the nipples are loose in the bore. Has anybody ran into that problem and how did you "re-attach" the nipples?
Thanks
Dirk
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Hi Dirk,
Yes, I did run into problems with the door hinge grease fittings on my 66 230SL. Because they had a hex, I assumed that they were screwed in. After three of mine broke and looked exactly like yours, with a little knob on the back side and nothing in the hole, realized they weren't going to unscrew. I assumed that after 50 years, they had welded themselves into the holes and that what i was seeing was a tiny hole in the fitting and a larger hole in the part of the fitting that broke off in the hole. I never really figured it out so I ordered some fittings from the local dealer. (A 000 997 04 88).
Now here is the frustrating part. When I was in engineering in the US auto industry, if I had done what Mercedes did, I would have been fired instantly. Part numbers and part design history are sacred. The parts I got from the Mercedes dealer, ordered from Stuttgart, were the same part number as the original parts according to the EPC, but the parts are completely different. They have no hex and they are press-in parts. Somebody changed the design without changing the number. My original ones were like yours. The photo is of the MB replacements (same part number).
My solution was to measure the fitting diameter, drill a slightly smaller fitting hole in the hinge barrel, file the hole to a press fit (a few hours work for three fittings), flush out the hinge pin hole and hammer the fitting into the fitting hole. I greased the three new ones and managed to get the original fourth one freed up enough to grease it as well.
The whole thing was a royal pain.
Good luck.
Tom Kizer
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You might want to try gluing it back in with JB quick weld or some similar epoxy being carefull not to plug the hole. If you end up trying to replace what you have look at page 21 here:
https://mdmetric.com/prod/umeta/grease_nipples_from_UMETA_catalogue_GK84-E_04-2012-2.pdf
These are self threading flush type grease fittings where you drill the proper size hole and they cut there own threads. They also carry the same "hex" head as the originals. Not sure the size of your holes in the hinges but an M6 which is the smallest they sell is probably around a 5mm hole.
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Thanks to both of you.
Tom, I did the same when seeing the hex but stopped after the second. (Not as open as you are in admitting it, lol).
I will press the pins out tonight and see what route to go. Thanks for the nipple-link, very helpful.
Dirk.