'71 Mach 1 - Hood hinge spring too weak

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ManniB

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Messages
119
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1
Location
Affalterbach / Germany
My Car
1971 Mach 1
:huh:Dear all,

as it looks like, the hood hinge springs of my '71 Mach 1 have become weak over the last 40 years (which is not a real surprise ;-) My hood doesn't stay open but drops down as soon as I take my hands off.

The hood has additional weight in form of a functioning Ram Air system. I'm aware that there are two different types of springs, the round wire ones for standard hoods and the square wire type for Ram Air hoods.

Since I wasn't able to locate any replacement springs for my Ram Air hood I ordered a set of standard springs hoping they would be strong enough. As you can imagine, this did not work :-(((

- does anyone know of a source for the stronger square wire springs?

- is there any other reason for my hood hinges not carying the weight?

- any other solution I might try?

Thank you, Manfred

 
The springs have been week on both of the 71-3's I have owned. They just barely held the hood up. I would imagine adding ram air would have bben enough to drop the hood on mine.

 
I'll be keeping an eye on this thread - I just won a nice set of hood hinges on eBay and they don't come with springs. I also have a Ram-Air hood, so I'll be interested to see what somebody comes up with.

 
Hi,

I finaly found a solution for the problem when talking to a friend who is a mechanic dealing mostly with farm equipment (after all, we live in a small village in the worlds largest hop growing area ;-) These machines have a lot of strong springs and he knows how to deal with them.

He recommended cutting one coil to beef the spring up a little. Obviously you need to build a new eye on the end that you cut. With the help of an anvil and by using a torch, this was done in a minute. However, you must make sure to heat the spring wire only at one spot and only to a very dark red. Otherwise, the spring might loose its tension.

After re-installing the springs the hood now stays open as it should. I have no idea if this will work for another 40 years, but for now, it did the trick.

Regards, Manfred

 
I don't know but according to my references, ALL '71 - '73 Mustangs used the SAME hood hinges - - D1ZZ16796A (Right) and D1ZZ16797A (Left).

BTW, I do not have ANY problems with the hinges on either of my '73s. This is in spite of the fact that I have a pretty large scoop built into the Mach I.

Hope this helps.

BT

 
the hinges are the same for all 71-73 the springs are not.

 
GREAT observation, 72HCODE!

Don't know how I missed the reference to "spring" - - Half Heimers kicking in again, I guess:).

BT

 
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