How To Replace Door Hinges

The hinges on a freezer, cooler or refrigerator get a lot of use. Every time you open that door they get more use, and eventually they will wear out. Hinges are also very important because they hold the door tight against the door frame and prevent warm air from seeping into your refrigeration compartment.

So lets talk about how to replace the hinge on this very common unit. It's important that you get the right hinge, and the machine you are working on may use a different hinge. So be sure to check the tag on the inside left of your refrigerator, cooler or freezer. If you'll get the model and the serial number from that tag, we can help make sure you have the right parts.

Now that we've talked about the hinges, lets take this old hinge out of the door. Begin with the door closed and remove the hex-head screws that mount the hinge on the unit. With those hex-heads removed, we'll open the door and swing the top of the door down. Then lift it off of the hinge on the bottom, and now we've exposed the top hinge. We'll take our Philips screwdriver and remove the screws that secure the hinge in the door. With those screws removed, we can pull the whole hinge out of the inside of the door. Sometimes these are fit in pretty tight and you may need to work at them with your flat head screwdriver. I find the easiest way is to come in from the backside and pry up on the hinge and the cartridge pulls straight out of the door. Let me tell you a little bit about cartridge options. These hinges come in both kits and individual cartridges. This cartridge does the real work of closing your door and this is what typically wears out. When you buy the hinge cartridge 832136 alone we just send you the cartridge as well as the top screw and couple of washers. The hinge kits ( 870837 and 870838) include this bracket with the cartridge, and you may find that your bracket is in good shape and you don't need to replace it. You can examine the bracket for worn places; the holes in the bracket may wear out, but most of the time you can get away with just replacing the cartridge alone.

Alright, lets put this hinge inside the door. As you place it in the door, you'll have to press down to force the hinge into the door. Now at this point make sure that your bracket is in the right place in relation to the rest of the door. We can look at our old hinge and bracket to confirm that the bracket is parallel to the hinge like this. This leaves the holes open for the screws.

Now lets put those Phillips screws in. Now that the hinge is in the door we're going to set the whole door back up into the frame just like this. Look for the pin in the bottom hinge and set the door onto that hinge. Now we'll close it again; don't forget the nylon shim that will go back in between the top of the hinge and the unit. When that is done, we'll use these hex-bolts to put this back in. Ok, we have that tightened up, now the door will operate properly again. It will keep the cool air inside the unit and keep warm air out.

And that's been how to replace a True hinge. Thanks for watching!