Many of us have purchased 240s with faulty driver's side door stop. The spring either breaks, or the "rollers" wear out or wear a groove into the spring.

I've experienced both problems. The best solution is to replace the entire bottom hinge unit with a same-side hinge from a rear door. I did this job yesterday, but as usual, with a few complications.

The hinge is mounted to the hinge pillar with three bolts. There is a three-hole flanged reinforcement plate between the bolts and the pillar (sort of like a big three-hole washer). The clearance between the bolt and plate holes is tight. It the plate holes are not perfectly aligned with the holes in the hinge, you WILL NOT get all three bolts to pass through the plate, through the holes in the hinge pillar, and thread into the tapped holes in the hinge.

After struggling for more than an hour and not being able to get more two bolts to thread in, I finally disassembled everything and laid the plate over the hinge holes. Sure enough, the holes were off by about 1-2 mm. I reamed out the plate holes and then everything went together with no problem.

Other tips:

- I used a hydraulic floor jack on the door bottom to lift and align it. This permitted me to fit the new hinge between the door and hinge pillar without loosening the top hinge or removing the bottom hinge pin.

- Then installing the new hinge, I loosely threaded the three hinge pillar bolts first, and then threaded the two door bolts. I used the jack to lower the door to just a little higher than its design position. This left enough play on both ends of the hinge that I could PERFECTLY align the door-side hinge end with its original position (the old hinge leaves marks). I then completely lowered the jack, aligned the hinge pillar side of the hinge, and tightened those bolts. By luck or design, the door closed and latched perfectly.