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I have a big door with two hinges I never saw before in my life. The door squeaks terribly - and I'm not sure if it's one of the hinges or both but I'd like to lubricate both. How do I do it? (Or: what is the name of this hinge, so that I can look it up online further?)

TOP HINGE

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BOTTOM HINGE

enter image description here enter image description here

Nelson
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lesssugar
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    That top hinge doesn't look like it's seated right. Have you pulled it out from the frame? – JACK Jul 09 '23 at 12:24
  • @JACK Nope, never touched it myself. Could be it's been like this for a while already. I'm not an expert, though, I can't see how it's not "seated right", unfortunately. Do you mean the screws are too loose? – lesssugar Jul 09 '23 at 12:27
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    It looks like that round collar should be around the spindle on the frame mounted piece. How about a picture with the door open. – JACK Jul 09 '23 at 12:43
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    @JACK Ohh, the collar is just a plastic cover for the hinge. I just pulled it away, so the hinge itself is more visible. – lesssugar Jul 09 '23 at 12:45
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    I don't see what's stopping you from squirting some lube in. Jam some paper towel at the bottom just in case you overlube. – Huesmann Jul 09 '23 at 12:52
  • Have you tried to oil/grease it yet? It should lube like any other hinge, add some light oil to the rotating parts. – crip659 Jul 09 '23 at 12:52
  • @Huesmann Will do. I guess I'm not sure how to apply the oil because normally I'd remove the door and lube then but this door is huge and the hinge is strange, so I'll try to put some oil on the moving parts and we'll see. – lesssugar Jul 09 '23 at 13:00

2 Answers2

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The bottom hinge is under tension, which might be contributing to the squeaking. It may also be causing it to jam against the frame-mount at the rear. That looks twisted too.

Those hinges are a bit voodoo, but should be adjustable in at least two axes, sometimes three. Yours looks like it has height & left/right and the torx screw might be front/rear.

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The bracket {curly brace} is where it's under visible strain. The red arrows are where the adjusters should be for height, L/R & F/R. These usually need Allen keys, but the only one I can see looks like torx, so you'll have to peer in to check. You need to use some guesswork to figure out which combination of moves works best. First, I'd take the tension off the hinge, using the L/R ajduster at lower left. That looks like it's already pulled about as hard left as it will go, you can see the adjuster thread & threaded lower hinge post around it in the image.

Once it's out of that extreme tension, then you use the 3D navigation the three adjusters give you to best fit the door-frame. It looks like your top hinge has no adjustment [usually both are the same] so you'll have to make sure you don't put that under tension/compression if you adjust height on the bottom hinge.

BTW, the actual hinge itself is little more than a post that the height adjuster sits on, and is shoved around by the two lateral adjusters. You can see the bottom of the post as it goes around the L/R adjuster, so to lube it, you need to spray up the post from underneath [blue arrow]. Sometimes there's a nozzle point higher up, but the only point I can see looks like a pop to prevent the top adjuster coming right out, rather than an oil point.

The top hinge, conversely, is just open. Tiny spray anywhere near the top will penetrate the whole thing.

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Tetsujin
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    Whoa. Thanks a lot for putting this much detail into the answer! I will try to play around with these as instructed. – lesssugar Jul 10 '23 at 19:17
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Give it a few good squirts with an oil can. Flatten the tip a bit to get in the seams. You can use a single edge razor blade to force the oil into the cracks. You can try to tap that pin down to see if it moves just enough to clear the top and hit it with some oil.

JACK
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  • The bottom hinge you can't oil from the top, unless they have a specific oil point in the barrel. I can't tell whether this one does, but I think the small 'dot' you can see near the top is a punch point to prevent over-adjustment. Hammering them is not going to improve anything, they don't have a through-pin like a regular hinge. The top hinge is just a passenger & I doubt is doing much at all. Usually two or even three hinges are all like the bottom hinge, which makes adjustment more … 'fun'. – Tetsujin Jul 10 '23 at 09:03
  • @Tetsujin That's a pin in the top hinge, you can tell by the head on the bottom of it. I simply said to hit the top to see if it would move downward to get to moving parts. It was a seondary attempt to oil the hinge, my first was the same as your's. shouldn't be a DV – JACK Jul 10 '23 at 11:58
  • The 'pin' in the top hinge will be screwed in from underneath. It's not easy to see from the photo, but it may not even be visible from the top, the 'lump' might even just be relief for the top of the screw-thread. There's going to be plenty of play in that structure anyway, as there has to be because of the adjustable nature of the bottom hinge. Either way, I still wouldn't recommend hitting alloy castings with a hammer, like you would a regular brass or steel hinge. – Tetsujin Jul 10 '23 at 12:04