New Year, New Hinges

We’re starting off the year with…. NEW HINGES! After much deliberation, we decided to go with the Exmoor Trim billet aluminum hinges. They’re only sold through the UK Exmoor Trim website, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was. Because we (in the US) have our own Exmoor Trim warehouse/store, the UK store wouldn’t ship us the hinges, even though the US store doesn’t carry that item. It was very frustrating. Luckily, my favorite sister recently moved to Germany and allowed us to ship them to her, and then she forwarded them to us in the US. Easy. And the best part throughout this was that they were delivered 2 months early! See, when we ordered these hinges they were backordered until February, so when my sister called and said she had our package in mid-december, we celebrated like it was Christmas. It was ah-mazing.

How did the install go, you might ask. Well, it was 50/50 incredibly easy and incredibly frustrating. See the picture above? That is the old security nut that had to be removed prior to install. Not a big deal. However, reinstalling the new ones was the tricky part… but only on the first row of doors because if you accidentally dropped them or if your bolt pushed the nut (even though you tested it 5x to ensure it would work), the entire security nut would slide off falling all the way to the bottom of the frame. Luckily the innovative brains of our 8 year old solved the issue when she suggested we to use a metal hanger and magnet to fish them out.

The funny thing, however, was that while we were fishing them out we found 3 other security nuts that someone had dropped in Big Red’s prior life.

Let me just add that this project was exhausting for our golden retriever puppy. She loves her daily drive in Big Red and because she couldn’t get one during install, she chose to nap inside it instead.

How long did install take? 2 days… about 3-4 hours each day. We worked on the passenger side and then moved over to the left. Are we happy with them? Incredibly! The doors close better/quieter, they’re better aligned, they have less gaps, which in turn allows for less cold air to blow in while we’re driving.

If you’re thinking about upgrading your Land Rover Defender hinges or have any questions, feel free to reach out. Cheers!

Next step, upgrade the weather stripping…