- My Clopay door specs label, 2007.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_01b.jpg (1.5 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
A couple of days ago, I noticed three of the removable hinge pins are missing. As it happens, there are two different lengths of Clopay Pinch Proof hinge pins, and two of the three missing ones are the longer ones, which are NLA (read on for more info). Looking at the design, the hinge pins do not retain the sides of the formed 18 ga. sheet-metal hinges, so one of the hinge arms eventually bends outward and no longer carries the load, which leads to the other hinge arm eventually breaking. 18 ga. is pretty light for this duty.
On my door, almost all of the hinges are all stamped, "CBPC" and a number; the exceptions are the four "corner" hinges, which do not appear to be stamped with any identifying info -- though, I didn't really look hard for any, because they have no current issues.
For the missing/NLA hinge pins issue, I bought (9) 1/4-20 x 2.5" G2 bolts -- no point in using harder bolts for hinges than the 18 ga. sheet metal! -- and matching nylock nuts for the intermediate hinges ("CBPC 00", three columns x (3) hinges ea.) and (6) for the left & right columns' hinges ("CBPC 01", "CBPC 02", "CBPC 03" and probably others), which carry the guide rollers as well as serving as hinges) and yanked all the original hinge pins, replacing all with bolts & nuts, not tightened fully but left with a bit of end-play to the bolts. That will prevent any hinge arm from shirking duty.
However, one hinge on the north side had a broken-off arm already. Oops. It's an "03".
While Clopay still mfgrs garage doors & parts, they discontinued the Pinch Proof hinges around 2018.
- DDM Garage Doors blog page on the discontinuance of Clopay Pinch-Proof hinges in 2018.
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And, while there's one used "00" hinge on eBay (for $95!), I was unable to locate a "03" hinge anywhere. This fellow folded one up from scratch but while I could probably fabricate on that level, it seems like an awfully easy thing to screw up three times to get one correct, and I don't have my full workshop reassembled yet. My "03" hinge wasn't as badly damaged as that fellow's, so I went the route of remediation rather than fabrication, and had it back up and working in under 90 minutes, which is the kind of timescale I want to work on for a rental's garage door. Basically, since there's LOTS of rooms around this hinge, I just sistered (to borrow a carpentry term) a piece of 1/4 steel flatbar to the side of the existing hinge in order to reestablish a hinge pin hole.
- Damaged Clopay "CBPC 03" hinge with one arm bent and hinge pin end missing.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_01b.jpg (434.27 KiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Damaged Clopay "CBPC 03" hinge with one arm bent and hinge pin end missing.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_02b.jpg (864.66 KiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Damaged Clopay "CBPC 03" hinge: tracing "good" hinge arm to 1/4 flatbar.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_04b.jpg (990.14 KiB) Viewed 5349 times
- 1/4" flatbar with cut lines.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_05b.jpg (1.61 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
I used a Bosch metal-cutting blade in my Porter Cable jigsaw, with the flatbar clamped to a portable workbench outside, to roughly fashion a sister member. I then located three places on the hinge where I thought I could fit nylock nuts for 10-32 screws, and through-drilled the sister member to the hinge's side, then countersunk the sister member for flathead screws.
- Sister member roughed to shape, three mount holes, countersunk.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_06b.jpg (858.73 KiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Hinge with sister member mounted.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_07b.jpg (970.5 KiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Hinge with sister member mounted.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_08b.jpg (1.62 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Hinge with sister member mounted.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_09b.jpg (1.69 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Repaired hinge mounted to door.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_10b.jpg (1.67 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
While it looks as if that bolt head is going to foul the lift cable, in reality they are 1/2" apart in the other plane, so no interference issue.
- Repaired hinge mounted to door.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_11b.jpg (1.24 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
- Repaired hinge mounted to door.
- Garage_Door_Hinges_Clopay_Pinch-Proof_03_12b.jpg (1.99 MiB) Viewed 5349 times
Given another hour, I could have found a grinder that I could mount outside and set up, then made the part much more photogenic. And squirted some paint on it, deburred it, etc. But this one I'm going to leave ugly and as-is. I suspect that another one of these hinges will give way, and when it does, I assume that either all hinges will be replaced (it's rumored that if you replace ALL the hinges with the newer, non-Pinch Proof type, the existing panels can be salvaged) or the entire door, suspension, and rails will be replaced. This is "good enough" until then; pretty doesn't make the door go up & down.