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replacing saddlebag hinges

fignewton

Full Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2019
Messages
80
On the right side of my truck, I have badly rusted hinges from where water sits (slightly on a hill) after it rains. I’ve seen the post that says you have to pull everything including the sail panels off to get to the back side of the rivets, as just removing the 4 torx bolts won’t release the hinge from the box. Question is, has anyone just drilled those out to remove the hinge? And if you did so, what did you use to replace them with. I plan to go to a You-Pull It yard next week and see if I can find better ones, or order new ones. Want to make it as easy as possible to remove any used ones I find. Do you have to pull everything apart to get the whole box with lid out of the truck? Thanks
 
Thought I’d do an update in case anyone else ever searches on this subject. I’ve read through hundreds of pages on the forum here, and did find that to get the hinges off the body/boxes, you have to pull the sail panels, etc and remove the back of the rivets from the bottom side.
I was able to get two sets of good hinges from a wrecking yard this afternoon. After pulling the top covers off the hinges (3 torx bolts on each side), I pulled the two bottom torx bolts. Then I drilled out the top of the rivets and punched them through. What I’m not sure about, and couldn’t tell, is how they go through the body. The bolts go ingo threaded inserts in the body. The parts diagrams don’t show them at all, just the bolts. When you pull the bolts, you can’t lift the hinges off the box. The bolts go into threaded inserts in the truck side, but I don’t know if these just go through the box and into a hole in the body, but with no backing on the backside of the body. Otherwise, seems like you wouldn’t be able to remove the box from the body. Will have to figure out another way to rivet them down and keep water out.
 
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