Sagging wgn tail gate

Ramrodfunk

My tailgate seems to be sagging.
Does anyone have experience fixing this?
How can I remedy it?
Do I need new hinges or can they be repaired?
Cheers
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carnut222

Yes, common problem. If you plan to keep the car, I'd suggest new hinges (available from GCP.se - see below for part numbers). Also make sure you've got the correct gas struts on the tailgate. Oftentimes people replace them with the wrong generic ones that have too high pressure, which can make things much worse for the hinges.

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Ramrodfunk

carnut222 Daaang, $160 US a side!!
Can't they be repaired?
Just till I can cough up for the new ones. Pleasant surprise they still have them in black.
Yes, going to keep the car. I have long term plans for mods.

carnut222

and further to my comment about the gas struts, the correct ones for the car (OEM) are Sachs SG315001…which are currently on closeout from RockAuto.com. $46.78AUD for a pair including GST and FedEx shipping to Australia. I've used these on all my 240 wagons with no issues.

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Ramrodfunk

carnut222 I replaced one of the struts a couple years ago. Bought 2 at the time. Only one needed replacing. But I did buy quality struts.

carnut222

Ramrodfunk From what I can tell, the hinges can't really be repaired. Usually the die cast metal is deformed and not sure how you could rectify that. It might be different if it were just worn pins or something, but the pivot pin is steel and the hinges are zinc alloy die cast from what I can tell. We need somebody to design and make some machined stainless steel ones for us! 🙂

Re: the gas struts, as long as they're the correct pressure you should be OK. A mate had new ones put on his 740 wagon and you had to put all your weight on the tailgate to force it closed…NOT good, and I've seen a 240 wagon similar…that definitely over-stresses the hinges.

Forg

What @carnut222 says pretty much matches what I’ve observed with other saggy-things-attached-by-hinges that I’ve seen, although I’ve not looked at this specific model. It’s very often distortion of the metal itself, and once that happens it’s munted. Technically speaking you could “repair” if you considered using the same metal in a forge to recast the hinge … 😁😁 … but in reality not too many of us have that equipment and buying new ones is cheaper.

If you’d like a positive aspect to it, at least it’s not like 200-series bonnet hinges where years of ignoring stiffness gets you a bent bonnet. The tailgate itself is likely still Smurfy!

Ramrodfunk

Forg We need a talented engineer to scan & produce billet hinges! I'll ask my very clever race car engineer nephew.

Major Ledfoot

What is the failure mode of these hinges?

AFAIK they're a pair of die-cast pieces with a pin through a pair of support brackets on each cast piece.

Do the pins fail, or does one or more of the die-cast pin holes in the support brackets elongate / go oval, and get wobbly?

Or something else?

carnut222

Major Ledfoot The die cast parts seem to deform - I think you can see that in the original post photos but a bit hard to pick. The top surface of the tailgate portion of the hinge appears somewhat convex, where I've drawn the red line. I think this area is where the pin is supported in the hinge, and it basically warps.

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jamesinc

@Ramrodfunk if you end up buying struts from Rockauto, throw in a pair for me and I'll split postage with you! My wagon I'm pretty sure has the wrong ones.