After 6yrs I finally took the top and doors off my Jeep. I installed the Harken hoist and it works exactly as advertised. Wow, it sure was difficult to get my doors off. I'll be looking for a good solution before putting them back on to prevent that seizing.

 

While you have the doors off, pull out the plastic sleeves inside of the hinges.

 

Agree, the delrin bushings make a world of difference. Also, don't bother with the cheap $30 set.....go ahead and pay $60 for the good ones. I thought I'd pay half price and be fine. They've been a bit of a headache as they are not snug enough. I've used some RTV on em even but they still come out with the door peg from time to time. My understanding is the $60 ones are a bit tighter and won't come out when you lift the door off.

In regards to storing the doors, I find solid hangers on the wall, or from ceiling rafters are easier than on some cart. Picking em up from ground level is harder IMO as you're having to bend over and pick up something that has awkward weight distribution. Especially on the front doors, being able to keep one hand on the handle and one hand under the door (rather than having to reposition hands) is easiest......that way you can lift off and transition right over to someplace to hang them. If you have the room on your walls for em, I think the hangers that have the place to hang via the hinge pegs are the best, rather than through the open window.

 

So my experience with the $60 delrin bushings was that I had to use a jack and 2x4 to push my doors out... they were certainly tight and worked great through the winter, but sucked getting the doors off. I had even put a small bit of grease in prior to putting the doors on last year.

 

That's pretty strange. The $30 ones I got (Kentrol 70002) are great in regards to the doors sliding in and out......they just don't stay seated in the door hinge itself without help (adding RTV or something to keep em there). Like, the outside diameter needed to be just a smidge larger. I used to have to grease my door pins before to keep em smooth when removing. With the delrin, no need. I've watched some vids of the $60 ones, and they seemed to need a bit more force installing them in to the hinge. The ones I have almost fell in to place without even a tap.

 

Yeah, mine are the opposite... like they need to be a smidge larger for inner diameter.

 

I see many suggesting the Delrin bushings, but I've been scratching my head of what they do or why they're even needed?
After struggling every spring for 4 years, I finally pulled those plastic hinge liners out, rub some white lithium grease on the hinge pins and all has been good.

 

My jeep (2011) didn't have plastic ones, they had aluminum liners which wallowed out. Hearing that the delrin liners are the cat's meow, I went with them. Overall, I like them as the doors fit much better, just a pain to take them off. Fortunately, that's once a year. Once my full size doors are off (as soon as I can tolerate the temperatures) they don't go back on until I can't tolerate the fall temps. I run half doors (rugged ridge) with uppers when needed.

 

Y, mine factory ones weren't plastic either, they were metal. I previously used grease on my pins to keep them sliding nicely. My doors come off fairly often in the fall and spring when it's not 100* here in Texas. I'd grease em ever other time or so. I just try to keep things simple, and if I can avoid grease, I do. It's not much effort at all to grease, but I'd have the doors hanging from the garage rafters and maybe brush a nice shirt up against them while getting something in the garage, and end up with grease on my shirt. Things like that, for example, annoy me. That's all.

Also, the Delrin is a nice barrier to separate the hinges from metal on metal contact as the doors open/close. I wouldn't want the painted hinges rubbing on each other each time. the plastic part on top of the metal hinge liner had worn off on my factory ones.

 

Thanks for the further details. I never knew they made so many variants of hinge assemblies. Mine never had a top plastic piece, just plastic inserts which eventually wore and started to bind up. I took a small screw driver and a pair of needle nose pliers and pulled out one of them that was messed up the most, and put a thin coat of grease on the pins. Then the next time I went to take the doors off, that one door came out with ease while I struggled with the rest. I didn't see any ill side effects and I said, the heck with this I'm pulling all the rest of them out and never looked back. Then I started hearing about the Delrins and kept asking myself, "Am I missing something?"