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Lost my nickles...hood spring help needed!


ebruns1

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Help!  I'm trying to remove my hood to get ready for paint and body work.  I've never had to do this before but I remember reading stuffing your spring with nickels would make it easy to remove.  So I got my pocket full of nickels and happily went out to my 47 Chrysler.  Popped the hood and started jamming it with the 5-cent pieces!  Boy this is gonna be easy.  OK, ready to go and let my hood down slowly to watch my glorious triumph over that massive spring...NOT!  The spring stretches when you close it!   Nooooooooo...I just wasted my roll of nickels and now I can't get them out either haha!  Boy what a dummy I am!  So, on to my next brilliant idea.  After studying the hinge and spring for more than I;d like to admit I came up with my next plan.  See photo for my turnbuckle idea.  I thought I could attach the top of the turnbuckle to the hood bracing and just lift the top of the spring off the arm.  Unfortunately, as I tightened the turnbuckle the arm also moved closer together and the spring did not pop aff as I had imagined.  Foiled again!!!  So now I"m stumped...I tried the search tool but I have found it very fickle and does not always produce the answers you are looking for...so now I need your help.  How do I get these dang springs off???  Arghhhhhh

spring.jpg

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usually from below and do this with the hood down so not to exert more tension than needed....

 

I would unbolt the hood from the hinge first if your goal is to remove the hood,  simply unbolt from the hinge...if you wish to remove the hinges then do that step next

Edited by Plymouthy Adams
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Wait...you mean I can take the hood off without removing the springs?  I thought I had to remove the 4 bolts that hold the arm mechanism to the cowl and the springs are attached to that.  So you are saying I can leave the springs on and there are bolts that will let the hood come apart?  It appeared that the pins were riveted to the hood.  OK I did not see where that was possible but let me check again...thanks!  That would solve my problem as I'm only trying to pull the hood off...

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I see bolts along the hood lip.....and if this is a truck....you should post on truck side as there may be some difference...I did not see a vehicle listed so I assume car related...even at that, I have not seen one that was built to where the hinge and hood were one piece..

 

it would be a good time to also check your hood mounting surface for being sound and treat any surface rust on the under side of the lip

Edited by Plymouthy Adams
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Hold on a sec...I said it's a '47 Chrysler in the post.  As far as I know they did not make trucks (?).  It is a Chrysler Windsor to be exact.  I also thought someone would know that from the photo.  Sorry if I was not clear...

 

So I really need someone that knows for sure how to get the hood off...do I need to remove the springs or not?  Thanks again!

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NO...... unbolt the hood from the hinge...in the very pic above you see the heads of the bolts.......and yes you said 47 Chrysler.....my bad.....look also to the center of the hood and verify if or if not there is a stay brace there..if so, it will need to be removed also.....

Edited by Plymouthy Adams
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I have worked on a '47 Chrysler and I can assure you that the hinges do not need to be removed to take the hood off. There are bolts that hold the hood to the hinge, I can even see a couple in your picture. They look to be pretty rusty so take your time removing them. You don't want to break anything. I would advise you have someone help you remove the hood as they are BIG and HEAVY as well as AWKWARD.

 

I also believe there is another hinged support for the hood with a circular spring in it if memory serves me correctly. At least there was on the '47 Chrysler limo that had been converted to an ambulance that I worked on. This is very easily detached as well from the hood.

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The hood comes off leaving the hinges on the car...

Remove the four bolts on each hinge and remove the short "L" bracket" that attaches to each hood hinge.

Slide the hood off the hinges ...simple enough..as long as the bolts are not rusty and break off. Hood will still come off though.

As also shown above!

1947-chrysler-town-country.jpg

Edited by Dodgeb4ya
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2 minutes ago, DonaldSmith said:

Before unbolting the hood from the hinge assemblies, mark the hood at the edges of each assembly, to make reassembly and adjustment easier.

 

 

VERY GOOD advice!!

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Aligning a hood on a 1946-48 Chrysler on a restoration is when all the other sheet metal has been removed and re-installed is a difficult and frustrating job.

Taking lots of pictures of fit up before removing body parts and drilling tiny  alignment holes in the hinges to hood and cowl can help as long as the original panel fit up is real good to begin with.

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Awesome tip, thanks everyone!  I did not even consider those bolts on the bottom lip of the hood as a possibility!  That's why I thought my only option was to remove the springs so I could unbolt the scissor hinge plate that's bolted to the sides of the cowl...  Unfortunately, I may still have to remove it that way.  After reading you tip I went out to the garage and sprayed those bolts up with WD and tried to remove them.  One bolt came out, two more broke loose the captive nuts and were just spinning.  There is no way to get a wrench down in that tight space and I'm not sure there would be anything to even put them over since the captive hardware is blocking them.  Short of drilling them out I guess I'm back to trying to figure a way to remove the springs again so I can take the whole hinge assembly off.  On the other hand, wouldn't that save me the trouble of trying to line up the hood mounting holes you guys were saying was a real pain to re-align?  This is turning out to be a nightmare...

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unfortunately this stuff happens with the old cars....just remember this...even if you remove the hinges...you still faced with this repair....I still suggest removing the bolts in whatever manner you can and exact an effective repair on the damaged hood panel.  This I mentioned earlier...many of these car have corrosion that needs addressing.  the hinges are usually of a heavy enough metal and protected by the very sacrifice of the hood metal itself.  Study this a bit more and not get in a hurry....time and patience will pay off and the results will be a minimum amount of damage one can easily address and correct.  

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If the hood bolts are rusted and spin the captured nut I'd probably cut the bolt heads off before trying to remove the hood and hinges...the hood and hinges would be big and awkward to lift off the car. Those hoods are big and long enough to handle with out the tall hinges to deal with.

 

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When removing rusty bolts it is essential to use patience. Tapping and heating work the best. As the hood is going to be painted some heat on the bolts would be feasible. I usually like to heat bolts to cherry red and then tap with brass drift and hammer. Repeat several times if necessary. Throwing some penetrating oil on helps as well. It may take a few days to loosen things up but most of the time the bolts will loosen. PATIENCE is the key.

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The blue tip is your friend when it comes to difficult frozen bolts....and know how to use it.

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Agree with the heat solution.  My ox/act torch gets used for that more often than any other use.  Also, penetrating oil needs time to work.  Spray and immediately loosening never works.  And if you do the oil thing, WD40 is not a penetrating oil.    There are several good ones, but I usually use ATF. 

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I just use a small propane bottle with a kind of tip that you can screw onto the top. This has provided plenty of heat to loosen bolts and you don't have the burn through issue ox/acet can give you. You can buy the propane bottle and several different types of tips as a kit at most auto places or hardware stores. It provides enough heat to get everything cherry red if you want.

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that propane hand held will work but I like the pin point control of the heat that the oxy-acetylene set allows me....but then I may have a few different tips than that which is usually provided in a torch set up in the box.  Personally I rarely ever use a 1 and on the average do most all my sheet metal with an 00 tip....if I need to do real thin stuff I will go to the 000 and unless the metal is huge and sinks a lot of heat...the 0 gets me by...on doing rosettes with wide piece of 16 gauge base with an 18 gauge overlay was the last time I used a 1 size tip...

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Heat just the bolt red hot real real real quick then let it cool... spray lube it after cooling... let it sit a few minutes.. remove the bolt.

As it's  cooling off you can also stuff a candle onto the semi hot bolt letting the wax sweat down into the threads...wait awhile remove the bolt.

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I'd still like an answer to my original question...how do I remove the old hood springs?  Why you ask?  Well I'm thinking about replacing them anyway...  Right now you really have to push up and lift the hood until the arm snaps into the lock position.  Wouldn't new springs make lifting that big heavy hood much easier?  Has anyone here installed new springs?  Did it make any difference or do you still need to heave it up?  When I pop my hood release and push the safety catch I have to pull out very strongly and lift it in order to get the hood open.  If new springs are not going to make much difference than I'll leave them as is and save the money...they are $75 on Epay!  So who's done this and did it help?  Thanks fellas!

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right now you need to access the total picture.....if the hood is hard to operate.....odds are you need to lube the hinges.  And, not a personal attack but if you having such a trouble understanding when I said remove them from below, I do not think you should be trying this job by yourself as removing the hinges is a can of worms you don't need to kick over considering the alignment issues going back on.  Those spring at 75.00 on e-bay are not the ones you will need.   The springs you have on that car will only need replaced if, broken in two, stretched (sprung as easily seen by the eye), or lost/missing.  But I will not in any account try to prevent you from all the fun you can have with this task.....I will pop some popcorn and sit back.  You are over complicating this job and the very fact you have now damaged the hood bolts and such...you need to remove the lid from the hinge to effect this repair.  The hood is now questionable in strength in the mounting area and YES...many of these will crack just ahead of the hinge mount.  This is a weak feature even when new.

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So old springs don't lose their tension after 70 yrs?  If so, that's great I won't replace them.  I thought it might help putting new ones on that's why I asked...

Also,  the springs from MOPAR PRO that say for "1946 Chrysler Windsor" are the wrong springs???  His ad is wrong?

 

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MoPar Ho is a hoser...cheap china repop parts.

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