Hello again Alctel:
Two pictures are attached. Maybe the your hinge is broken the same way?
Firstly 12 years ago, I can't remember exactly the steps. But the following could be useful if you think your hatch might be repaired similarly:
- Went to plumbing section of hardware store. Looked in the brass section. Found some sort of fitting that had enough brass for the job.
- Filed/ground down (or probably cut flat using a Dremel cutting wheel attachment) the jagged section of hinge.
- Cut the brass piece to size.
- Drilled into the brass piece a 1/4" hole cross-wise for inserting a thru-bolt to serve as the new hinge pin. (On this probably better to use next size down #12 or even a #10. Still plenty strong enough, but leaves more metal around it.)
- In the brass piece, drilled holes for the anchoring bolts to the hatch frame. I don't recall what size I used. Looks like a #10 though.
- Epoxied the brass piece to the aluminum frame. Aligned properly naturally! The epoxy only to keep the joint firmly enough for the next step.
- Using the proper size bit for the tap thread (say #10), and through the pre-drilled holes in the brass piece, drilled into the hatch's aluminum frame. Pretty deep, but not enough to penetrate all the way through to the plexiglass.
- Tap threads into the aluminum.
- Insert and tighten the #10 bolts.
- Insert the hinge pin.
- Check that it all works.
- Finally, I think that I removed (one at a time) the #10 bolts, coated the threads with epoxy, then re-torqued. Other than added strength, epoxy would help minimize galvanic corrosion between the SS bolts and the aluminum.
regards,
rardi