Keeping our Mustangs on the road and the show field and enjoying them to their fullest extent is what this hobby is all about. But for multiple Mustang families with Mustangs that play different roles, sometimes one of the Mustangs gets a little more attention than the others. Daily-driven Mustangs are sometimes the unfortunate benefactors of this neglect. The show Pony sits in the garage all covered up, while the vintage racer is in the workshop out back getting ready for the next weekend autocross event, and the daily-driven Pony sits outside looking like an automotive paint-fade testbed. The windshield wipers are dry rotted, the dash is filthy, there are soda stains in the console, the door weatherstrip is torn from years of ingress and egress, and the doors noisily creak when opened. Sound familiar?
The daily-driven Mustang, the one that many of us depend on to reliably get us from point A to point B, should be cared for and maintained adamantly. Regular oil changes, scheduled tune-ups, coolant flushes, belt changes, and more should be conducted as required to keep your car on the road. Many of our how-to articles are geared toward keeping daily drivers on the road.
Door hinges on the Fox Mustang are welded to the door shell and then the hinge/door assembly is bolted to the Fox body. Unlike a vintage Mustang where you can simply replace the complete hinge assembly, the Fox Mustang hinge requires the use of a cutting and welding apparatus to replace the hinge for major repairs. Luckily, a major repair is quite rare (like accident damage).
The most common problem associated with the Fox door hinge is a bad hinge pivot pin and pin bushing or a bad door check roller. Both of these maladies can be repaired with the use of regular handtools and some help from a friend. Check out the door hinge pin repair we completed on an '89 four-cylinder sedan with a set of replacement Ford door hinge pins and bushings from Texas Mustang Parts.