How do you seal your door hinges to the body?

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Like the title says, what do you do to prevent water from seeping between the body sheetmetal and the door hinge bracket, and thus finding its way down inside your A-pillars and possibly the rocker panels? Never thought this could be an issue, but it is for me, the main problem being a harness gets dripped on from the upper door hinge bolts that leads the water out of the A-pillar's bottom (where it can safely drain) and into my door sill channel (where it pools and floods another harness). Not only is this annoying, but I also want to prevent any water from entering the A-pillars to begin with, as while it can drain out now once weather turns cold enough the water will just freeze in there and fuck with my rust-proofing and get the rust monster going.

[gadget73]

maybe RTV around the hinge bolt, and possibly a thin layer between the hinge and the body to keep water out of there entirely?

My own solution is indoor parking but I realize thats not an option for everyone.

[GM_Guy]

If its seeping in via the bolts, I'd use teflon paste on them. Easy to remove should you ever need to do so again.

[Tiggie]

Seam sealer between the hinge to body. Be liberal but not too much.

[sly]

+1 RTV. I usually use Ultra Black because I'm not good with keeping stuff clean at all and it seems to give no fucks, sticks to everything and lets nothing by.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

It's not just the bolts, its the whole damn setup that weeps since the holes in the A-pillar are much larger than the bolts to allow for adjustment. I can RTV it yes, but once that sets the hinge stays there, and if I ever need to loosen it up to realign the door (cause shit happens) the thing ain't gonna seal no more. Plus the whole mess is pretty well hidden by the fender, it will be quite the bitch to even apply the RTV in there.

I was thinking cut a gasket out of thin rubber, smear some non-hardening sealant on both sides (stuff that's used for repair sleeves on diesel cranks), and slide that between the hinge and the A-pillar. Once the hinge bolts are cinched down they will crush the rubber between the steel plates and make it seal nice and good. If bolt holes are drilled smaller than the bolts themselves, the rubber will seal the bolt as well.

[VicCrownVic]

Not sure if this is a good idea but, if there is room, perhaps fabricating some sort of awning/channels to place above each hinge to channel the water to the front or rear of the hinge instead of right down onto the hinge. Or, another not so great idea, cover each hinge with plastic glued to the body above the top edge of the hinge. The bottom edge would need some way to prevent the plastic from becoming a water trap.
Even if both ideas aren't that great, perhaps it could spark another outside the box idea that might be better.

[sly]

I was thinking a bead AROUND the hinge (except the bottom)... not between it and the pillar.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Not sure if this is a good idea but, if there is room, perhaps fabricating some sort of awning/channels to place above each hinge to channel the water to the front or rear of the hinge instead of right down onto the hinge. Or, another not so great idea, cover each hinge with plastic glued to the body above the top edge of the hinge. The bottom edge would need some way to prevent the plastic from becoming a water trap.
Even if both ideas aren't that great, perhaps it could spark another outside the box idea that might be better.

Water deflectors/channels, a very good idea indeed. Random bit of trivia, Ford actually had such parts made to clip inside the '87-'91 F-series doors right under the wing windows, the goal being any water getting pass the window seals will be collected into said parts and then safely channeled away from the speakers below, which is where it would otherwise end up. Sadly the '92-up doors lack that feature, the mounting slots are still stamped into the sheetmetal but the plastic water collectors/deflectors are no longer installed, I'm guessing because the window seals were redesigned and were supposed to be better? Thing is tho the redesign was only partial, and the section that leaked before was never actually altered - so now if your OBS wing windows leak, you can expect your fancy speakers to not live a long and happy life.

I was thinking a bead AROUND the hinge (except the bottom)... not between it and the pillar.

Unfortunately due to the shape of the fenders the front edge of the hinges is nigh impossible to reach, it will be quite hard to do a proper seam of RTV around it. I did, however, just notice said front edge was already sprayed with undercoating after doors went on and before fenders were installed, so there's a good chance the problem is only the top edge. Which is easy enough to seal up with some X-O Rust paint, that stuff lays on very thick and dries out quick, should be able to float quite a bit of it in there to hopefully seal any and all gaps for good. Then hit the thing with some more undercoating on top of it all. And being just paint it's still easy enough to scrape off and reapply should hinge adjustment be needed down the road. Yeah, think I'm gonna try that tomorrow, lots of rain predicted for the following week so I'll now for sure if it worked or not.

[gadget73]

what about just packing some grease into the area to serve as a water repellent?

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Could work, but generally it's the same issue with not being able to reach in there properly that's stopping me from using the RTV. Also it would collect all sorts of dust and dirt, not that generally matters if it keeps shit from rusting, but still. Actually now that I think about it it may be a pretty good idea to spray the bottom of the A-pillars cavity with something like fluid film or whatever, dust doesn't matter there since it can't really enter, and it will greatly help any water that enters to find its exit in a much more speedy manner.

All that said, I do think the problem has been solved. You see, the hinges have three bolts each, and while a single one being tight on each hinge is sufficient for keeping the door in place, you really really want all three to be tight. In this case both front bolts on both hinges were left loose after a door realignment during or after an offroading trip months ago, thus the front of hinges was always separated a bit from the A-pillar sheetmetal, so any water dripping onto the top could just leak thru the gap and down into the A-pillar. All bolts tight now, lots of X-O floated in the gap up top and over the bolt heads and such, all should be well. Leak was never present on driver side (where all the bolts were tight), it was only the passenger side that had loose bolts and water was also leaking just there. Gonna see in the next few days how this holds up for sure.

[sly]

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Unfortunately VEVO videos on youtube do not play nice with my computer. Reasons unknown, most others work just fine. Must be a copyright protection thing, or something else along those lines. So what am I missing out on?

[sly]

Toto - Africa

[gadget73]

You are missing nothing. Imagine CSNY if they had 80s synthesizers.