Door hinge LOUD popping

[TriniBoy]

So when opening and closing my driver side door, the door hinge is making a loud popping sound.

I've seen a few threads on this most of which point to changing the door stop, so bought a brand new door stop, and replaced it today... but still the same problem.

I'm seeing a lot of play on the hinge arm that connects the stop to the car, so I'm assuming that's where the issue is.

Any idea on how I fix this? Video below...

For some reason embedded video isn't working... here's a direct link - https://youtu.be/NN-cZCa5TbU



Any help much appreciated.

[reelizmpro]

The weld on the body is probably broken. Happened on my first e30 but never did fix it.

[ELVA164]

Mine does the same thing; it's the weld. You can't really access it, but I've heard you can spot weld right where the car side of the hinge comes through the chassis.

[TriniBoy]

^^ Thanks guys.

Spot welding the protruding bit of the hinge to the body sounds like a pretty good solution if it's not really accessible.

Any members on here done this before?
Interested to hear the outcome.

[ELVA164]

I'd like to get around to it, but our welder is out of gas and my E30 is low man on the totem pole compared to the race cars...now that you've reminded me, I'll see if I can squeeze in a run to the welding shop soon.

[TriniBoy]

Haha thanks man, keep me posted on if you make any progress.
I'm gonna look into it this week and see if I can book in to get it sorted soon. It's driving me insane!

[fenwick]

i have this same problem, help! bump!

[TriniBoy]

i have this same problem, help! bump!

I'll keep you posted on if I have success or not.
Won't be for a few weeks though.

[TriniBoy]

I'd like to get around to it, but our welder is out of gas and my E30 is low man on the totem pole compared to the race cars...now that you've reminded me, I'll see if I can squeeze in a run to the welding shop soon.

i have this same problem, help! bump!

As seems to be the standard, a few weeks turned into a few months, but I am happy to say the problem is now fixed, the spot weld did the trick!

[fenwick]

Any chance you can post a pic of where you did the weld?

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

[TriniBoy]

Any chance you can post a pic of where you did the weld?

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

Before (but after I already took out the holding pin):


Arm that has been welded to the body:


After:




Hope that helps you out man

[Das Delfin]

If you don't want to weld it you can just remove the thing from the car. Mine didn't work for the first year of ownership and I fixed it more so the car would be closer to 100% than anything. Didn't really bother me

[ELVA164]

If you don't want to weld it you can just remove the thing from the car. Mine didn't work for the first year of ownership and I fixed it more so the car would be closer to 100% than anything. Didn't really bother me

Wait, so you have no door catch?

[Das Delfin]

^ I didn't for a while. The original one came undone from the door from one bolt and twisted some of the metal around the other bolt. Eventually I found another unit and was able to bend the door metal back and it's fine now. I didn't have a problem with how it was before, other than opening the door when the car was on a hill.

[tomstin]

Just repaired mine the other day. First I removed the door brake from the car door and made sure it was clean and lubed. The noise seemed to be coming from the A pillar. Being careful not to pinch your finger if you reach between the door and the outside of the A pillar I could feel it move when the noise happened. With a mirror I could see a crack in the A pillar. Removed the door and sure enough I could see several cracks in the outside of the A pillar around a spot weld.

I cleaned the area real well and ran a bead of weld along the cracks on the outside of the A pillar to reinforce the area. Problem appears to be solved.

Hit the area with primer and re-assembled the door.