Hood hinges

[KYBlueOval]

Finally got back at it. Here's a pic of the tube labeled with dimensions from the bottom. I did it this way because I had cut mine to 8 1/2 long before I realized they were going to be sticking out the bottom. If you cut yours at 9", they'll be closer to flush up top, but either way is ok. I got both painted and installed. If you need anything else, let me know.
To form the side that is angled out, I just put the tube in a vise and used a prybar to bend it out. I then used an adjustible wrench to grab the side and give it the twist it needed. Back and forth a few times, but pretty easy to do.
Don't forget you need one left and one right.

I now understand what all you have done. Very nice work and great forward thinking on how to fix it down the road.
John

[VwDrvFnd]

I think I finally got all my parts. Now just need to pull the hood and hinges so I can clean them up and do the install.

[RICH MUISE]

My biggest helpful hint would be to make sure you've got full hood closure...with what you've got going here, combining the delrin, like wighty did, with the longer eyelet ends, you may need to drill another 5/16 hole lower in the hinge bracket than the oem to get that closure...you don't want the lift to bottom out before the hood closes all the way.
Also, I'm assuming your plans are to drill the delrin, then cut a slot in the delrin for the eyelet to reach the pin? Or just using the delrin for spacers? just for reference, my spacers were 1"(back), and 1/2" (front)
Either way, the lift at the bottom may need to be closer to the front of the hinge bracket, so you may end up redrilling the hole thu the hinge bracket anyway. Clearance up top gets tight with the new pivot point location, so moving the bottom of the lift closer to the front helps that. Don't try to fit things too tight...that lower pin isn't 90* to the center of the lift, but the hole size in the eyelet is large enough to accomodate that out of square.

[VwDrvFnd]

Got out side yesterday in between the rain drops and pulled my hood, radiator and hood hinges.
They are a lot less rusty then I thought they would be. I pulled the bottom pin and got the spring out and ground the rivet for the top pin and removed it. I used the factory hole to mount the pivot ball on the arm with a nut and lock washer. I was originally going to use the factory lower pin holes but I scribed a line in the side of the arm before I pulled anything apart and I figured I would use that as a reference to where in needed to be when all mocked up. it was way off so I drilled new holes 1/2" from the bottom of the bracket and 1/2" from the mounting flanges to give enough room for the delrin spacers. This brought the arm almost to the stock position. Hopefully it will be enough when it is all closed up.
I need new mounting hardware for the hood hinge brackets. the factory stuff broke getting it off, I cant seem to find it in any of the catalogs, Anyone know where I can get it?

scribed line

side view

flange side



Have to work on a better way to cut the delrin spacers


Moved pin location



one side mocked up

[RICH MUISE]

I may be wrong, but I don't think the sheetmetal clip/nuts are original. I believe the reason for the large suare holes (2 on each bracket, 2 on each side of the firewall) are for caged nuts. That's what I used on mine. I bought a  box on ebay a few years ago. I assume that's what you were talking about by "mounting hardware". A good body supply shop should have them. I thought I had most of a whole box of them left, but when I was looking for them for my lower front rocker/fender mount, I only found a half dozen. I'll look again, and let you know if I've got any I can send you if you can't find them.
I recognized that Texas silt, btw.

[Ford Blue blood]

Have to work on a better way to cut the delrin spacers

To cut square and get exact dimensions with tubing or pipe I use a pipe cutter to scribe an indent around the tube/pipe.  This provides a prefectly square guild to cut the tube/pipe with a hack saw.

[RICH MUISE]

delrin could probably be cut with a chopsaw or table saw. I cut nylon blocks all the time with them. I also cut alot of aluminum. I do always run carbide tipped blades.

[VwDrvFnd]

You can see the nuts here on the left side of this picture.
They are square nuts welded to a clip that clips around the flange and thru the hole. The lower holes had bolts thru the flange and into square nuts welded to the core support. The welds snapped when taking the bolts out and i had to use a cresent to hold the nuts to get the bolts out. I am sure i can just get some different nuts for the bottom bolts but would like to use original hardware if i can.

I am no fabricator, I build 3D steel models all day long on the computer but actually getting out in the shop and building stuff, I don't have much experiance and am still learning. That being said I did build a gig so I could hold the delrin centered in the drill press(1" Flat boring bit to make a hole in a piece of 2X4).
I tried using a small hose clamp to cut it squarely with a hacksaw but i still couldnt get it flat!

[RICH MUISE]

Others can confirm what was on their cars, but the "clip nuts" you referenced in the above pic are the ones I think are the wrong type and not original, and should be the caged nuts as you can see in my pic. There would be no other reason to have such a large rectangular hole. The cage nuts float so you have some adjustment on the hood hinge bracket. With that said, the ones on the core support should not have been welded in place.
As far as holding the Delrin upright in a drill press, a machinist's v-block would work well.
BTW, I can spare 8 of the caged nuts if you want to go that route..pm me your address and I'll get them in the mail if you want.

[VwDrvFnd]

Rich Thanks for the offer, i think i found something that will work for me. I am pretty sure my car has never been apart and doesn't show any signs of ever being damaged. I am pretty sure those are what was used from the factory. who knows! 

[Zapato]

There were so many different factory assembly plants that its impossible to be 100% sure on what is or isn't as delivered. And then there's always ''the guy'' we all know him who has to do something different just because he can but don't confuse him with the guy who has to come up with a quick fix on the line when something doesn't fit quite right.

Zap-

[VwDrvFnd]

Went nut & bolt shopping today after work. Hardware guy tells me my bolts are 5/16x24 fine thread. Couldn't find anything in 5/16x24! Not even regular flanged nut! i dont have a thread guage, is there another way to tell if he was right or wrong? my mistake was not physically checking the bolt size myself with there guages.

[RICH MUISE]

My take.....If you're not restoring a car back to factory specs, don't worry too much about thread pitch on things like this. Sometimes you have to find the oddball component first (like the caged nuts), then match whatever thread pitch it is with the more commonly found component (bolts). If you don't have a good nut and bolt shop in your town, try Lowes and Home Depot's metal cabinets. Fastenal is good also, but more often than not you can't buy small quantities. I special ordered three or four things from them. I have a harder time because I've replaced everything with stainless when I could.