Door checks tend to get neglected and they can cause a number of problems should they fail from lack of lubrication.
The door can stay stuck open, it may not close readily unless slammed shut, or A or B pillar can get mangled when the check strap hinge tears out the sheet metal.

Over the decades, the old dried grease reacts with the paint and primer on the door check roller path and rollers to form an adhesive sludge.
This prevents rotation the central bronze wheel.
The shaft gets bent and the smaller outer rollers no longer run parallel.
The mechanism will become loose in the half open (first stop) position.
It will be very tight in the full open (second stop) position…requiring excessive force to close the door.
The excessive force to close the door can deform the check strap and/or cause a tearout of the check strap hinge from the sheet metal in the A (or B) pillar.
The excessive force can also cause breakage of the pot metal in the door check housing and a loss of any door check capability.


Under previous ownership, ‘Stormcloud’ suffered a tearout of the DS door check strap hinge in the A pillar.
This was functionally repaired with a couple of welds by a PO.
Because of excess weld material that was not removed, the hinge pin clip will not seat on the hinge pin.
Also, the rubber seal for the door check does not seat.


The right front door check failed to hold the door open at the first position, and the door would self-close at inopportune times.
I got tired of my shins getting banged up, so I removed the broken door check to replace it with a good used replacement.

Removing the door check:
First, I removed the check strap hinge pin.
When present, the rubber seal needs to be pulled off the ears of the hinge to gain access to the lower retaining clip on the hinge pin.
The hinge pin retaining clip has a finger pull that makes it simple to remove.
Next, I drove the hinge pin up with a couple of light hammer blows.
The top of the hinge pin is splined and can’t be pulled out by hand.
I used a scrap machine screw as a punch to free the hinge pin.
I held the scrap machine screw with needle nose vise grip pliers to protect my fingers from the hammer blows.
Both the thin upper and thick lower white plastic (Delrin?) washers for the check strap hinge were missing.

The factory countersunk machine screws mounting the door check to the door have blue thread locker and the heads are painted over.
I used a new #2 Phillips hex bit with a quarter inch drive rachet to loosen the door check screws and a 10mm box wrench to loosen the painted flanged nut.
A large nail was inserted in place of the hinge pin and the door was positioned at the first stop.
The loosened machine screws and flanged nut were removed, and the door check was taken out of the door.
If the door check is removed in the full open position, it is hard to move the check strap to the half open position that is required to disassemble the mechanism.

Attached Thumbnails

         

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78 W116 300SD 'Desert Rose' new as of 01/26/2014
79 W116 300SD 'Stormcloud' RIP 04/11/2022