One of my friends asked for help repairing a gate hinge. He and his wife have a small stable of riding and pulling horses, and one of the gates had worn at the hinge point to where it was getting difficult to open and close.
This gate was a permanent part of a panel, so removing it for repair was not an option, not without removing the whole panel.
The lower hinge piece had cut into a cross-tube and was both cutting the cross-tube and causing binding.
There was no 220 electric power available to run my welder, and we did not have access to a gas-powered welder for the site of this repair. Had a welder been available, the repair could have been to fill the gap cut by the lower hinge piece in the cross-tube, and then weld a bearing surface of some kind over the area to prevent it from just being recut by the gate opening and closing.
The other thing to consider was the thickness of the tubing of the gate and panel. It isn’t just anyone with a welder who can do more good than damage welding on thin material.
I made a repair piece that would both support the weight of the gate at the upper hinge and hold the gate out of the area damaged by the lower hinge piece.
To make the repair piece, I cut in half a large washer. The upright tube size was 1 ¾ inches, outside diameter. I also cut in half a 1 ½ inch shaft collar. (I tried to find a 1 ¾ inch shaft collar, but none were available locally. On a subsequent piece, I used a heavy-wall piece of angle iron in place of the shaft collar. All that’s needed is a piece of steel robust enough to both pinch the upright tube and keep the two halves of the washer on a flat plane.)
I welded the collar halves to the washer halves, so I ended up with a center opening that was just smaller than the 1 ¾ inch upright tube. I welded oversized nuts to the outside edges of the shaft collar halves and the washer, so that a smaller bolt would pass through them and pinch the repair piece around the upright tube. Note that nyloc nuts were used, so vibration and use can never loosen the bolts.
After welding all the pieces together, I checked the size of the opening in the middle, and I trimmed metal away with a grinder so the opening fit nice and snug around the upright tube, so that when it was bolted together, it pinched the upright tube enough to stay firmly in place. The set screw that came on the shaft collar was still usable, but it was not necessary.
Once the vision of the repair was firmly in mind and the parts gathered, it only took about a half hour to actually make the repair piece.
The two halves of the big, flat washer pull together nice and flat to make a smooth bearing surface for the upper hinge piece to rotate on. In the pictures, the big washer has not yet been cut in half.
Pictured is the more common type of hinge for a gate panel. These are more robust; plus the hinge piece can be removed for repair.
And, of course, the residents of the stable were keeping a close watch, hoping to learn the secret to opening the gate.
Note that without Yankee ingenuity, buckskin, baling wire and duct tape, America would have starved to death generations ago. Want a job with lots of “pull?” Get a job milking cows! PD
PHOTOS: Photos provided by Brad Nelson.
