Although our recently acquired 2004 Troll has survived well, one or two bits have been showing their age.

The hinge for the tilt out flap to support the front bed, next to the door, is somewhat rusty, and also the hinges on the little upper cupboard flap in the bathroom have suffered.

Although I originally looked at just replacing the bathroom cupboard hinges like for like I realised that the ingrained rust staining - which I have not been able to remove without damaging the surface - was still going to be visible. Also, quite frankly, the original style hinges looked like they'd come from a rabbit hutch.

The photo shows one as removed and one after wire brushing.....
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So, knowing I was going to replace the continuous hinge on the seat flap it seemed a better idea to do likewise for the bathroom cupboard as it would help me get used to working with that hinge style on a smaller project first.

In the end I decided to use continuous aluminium hinge with stainless steel pivot as the most likely combination to reduce the risk of future rusting in both locations. Screws are bright plated 2.5mm x 16mm drilled 1/16th"

The hinge arrives in a 2m length and the bathroom uses 380mm - so there's enough for flap as well - plus a bit....It is not 100% flat and at first feels stiff - but that is because it is slightly curved. Once screwed into place that is all taken care of. Also it arrives a bit sticky with a coating of aluminium dust from manufacturing.

Accurate measuring helps to get the holes even with one dead centre to help with alignment. In the end I used a little Multitool grinder cutter, modelling thingy from Lidl to cut the hinge - though it did shatter a few of the wafer thin cutting disks along the way - eye protection necessary. An angle grinder is just too fierce to get a nice smooth cut.

After cutting and filing any sharp edges it took a while to clean the hinge - white spirit and strong cloth - but it's worth it.
The tricky bit with fixing is getting the hinge in just the right place on the door flap and where it is mounted on the cupboard frame. Also, because the cupboard front tilts forwards you cannot get a drill to make vertical holes in the hinge mounting point on the frame. This is why the original screw heads are not flat. In the end I used a combination of a nice sharp fine bradawl and a right angle ratchet with a hexagon mounted drill bit I bought about 45 years ago.

Anyway job done - front seat flap next. That'll need very careful measuring to make sure I use the same screw holes.
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What is interesting about that flap is the chassis number on my van is only 19 apart from a 2004 Troll recently advertised. On that one the flap hinge is not on the floor, but a small riser that looks about 15mm up from the floor. Odd how things changed