need help with hood springs

[big tom12]

I have bought a new set of hood springs for my 1948 plymouth does anyone know how to rehook them back up. thank you

[cwcars88]

When I replaced mine I hooked the spring on the hindge, put a S hook on the bottom hook on the spring, tied a small rope with a eye on each end. One end on the hook the other end dropped down about six inches from the floor, put a pipe or 2x4 threw the bottom eye. Use your foot to push down on the pipe to streach the spring until you can hook the bottom of the spring.

[Dodgeb4ya]

There should be a stop limit tab on the hinge that you can bend to let the hinge fold back enough to rehook the spring. Then bend back the limiting tab.

Bob

[RHDSP15C]

You need STRONG fingers.

[mach0415]

Hello, I just struggled with the same problem. But after thinking for a minute, I realized you can stretch them using thick washers. I put the spring in a vice and flexed the spring back and forth, inserting washers evenly at the coil gaps. I gained approx 1.5 inches in spring length and was able to install. I simply knocked them out, once they were on. Simple, yet works great and inexpensive!

Mark

[steveplym]

Easiest way to hook the springs back up is as follows. I tried the chain and rope trick. Then I had a fellow P-15 owner tell me how to do it a few years ago.

Put the rear bolt in and tighten it just a bit so it stays loose, but will hold the hinge on. Then make sure you spring is hooked up the the bracket down below on the fender and then connect it to the hinge. Keep the front bolt handy while you are doing this.

Next get the front bolt hole to line up, either with a punch or by just pushing up on the front of the hinge. Lifting the hood up works well too. Once you have that done put the front bolt in, make any adjustments you need after you have done the same thing on the other side.

[bob_amos]

Try this. It is the way we do it when a speader is not available. Place the spring end in a vice. Now get a load of nickles or thick washers. Insert a bar down the middle of the spring. Bend the spring so that one nickle or washer can be inserted between the coils of the spring. Now alternate from side to side working your way up the spring. Once you have them all in place just place the spring ends on their mount of the hinge. Place some rags under the spring and close the hood. The nickles or washers will fall onto the rags for retrieval. You'd be surprised how good this works.

[Vector.1]

I just had to do the hood spring dance after removing the hood.  The hood sheet metal is attached to a plate with rivets.  After 70+ years, the rivets got tired and the plate was separating from the hood sheet metal.  I had a buddy weld the plate back on to the sheet metal - at the rivets and along the interior side...on both sides (left and right sides) of the hood.  The forum above provides an interesting solution of using nickels in the coil to lengthen the coil, but I needed to stretch the springs 1.25".  With nickels being 0.070", I would need 17.8 nickels x 2 (one on each side of the spring so the spring stays straight).  While placing the nickels in the coils using a persuader to bend the coil, it was difficult to keep all of the nickels in their spot.  The solution was to use a floor jack.  Place the bottom loop around the jack's axle and the top loop on the jack's dish.  Then crank away until you get the right length (for me it was 13.25")...you want only a little bit of the nickel to be in the coil or else it's be tough to get them out (no, the nickels just don't fly off when you close the hood...some do, but most you have to yank out of there).  This really worked out ok for me.  Jamie Holbrook

[greg g]

Good idea using the jack. A friend used a prop rod to support the hood about three or 4 inches shy of wide open when he used the nickle trick. We used a a come along to stretch the spring during the nickle insertion. When the springs were in place, raising the hood to wide open released most of the nickles.  The rest eventually rattled out.