Jeff,
I'm confused here: your car is about the same aage as mine yet the hinges you describe couldn't be more different. After 22K miles there is no wear.
When I took the hinges off to seperate the plates from the pin I had to make a drift from a nail and drift out the pin: they took some force.
Both plates and pin seem to be made from stainless steel, possibly a marine grade as there is no magnetic response. Polishing the plates showed they are very hard.
The only logical conclusion is that Morgan has hinges from two sources, one uses hard high nickel "316" trainless, the other a softer grade.
But still very odd.
