Hood Hinges/hood adjustment

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Silverback

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 28, 2012
Messages
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Location
DC Metro
My Car
71 Mach 1
When I pull up on my hood, the hinges pivot up and forward, dragging the back edge of the hood over the top of the fender (and when I say top I mean top, not the edge where the hood fits, more like maybe >1/4" past that across the top of the fender. How do I fix that?

While I'm at it, the back edge of the hood sits a little low, on most other cars I've owned there was some adjustment in the hood hinges, but most of the height adjustment happens with adjustable bumpers at the back edge of the hood and in the hood hinges. I don't see anything like that on mine. Is the only available adjustment on these cars with the hood hinge mount points?

 
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I had a similar problem once when I had mismatched hood hinge springs (one was flattened coil style, the other was round coil style). It caused the hood to move laterally when opening and closing.

Could be one spring has less tension than the other. Imusa76 also has a good points.

 
year of car might help
71 Mustang Mach 1 (with a ram air hood)



could the hinges be worn out, and just have tooo much play in them?
Hood hinges always seem to have some play in them, honestly these feel tighter then on most of my other cars (none are classic mustangs). They were really stiff, and I lubed them with garage door lube last night and that made them work much smoother and made this situation better, but not right.



I had a similar problem once when I had mismatched hood hinge springs (one was flattened coil style, the other was round coil style). It caused the hood to move laterally when opening and closing.

Could be one spring has less tension than the other. Imusa76 also has a good points.
I'll have to look, but I'm pretty sure that I have the round coil springs, not the flattened coil on both sides, but they feel _really_ strong. The thing is that it's not really going over to one side or the other more, the hood is pulling forward and it's wider in the back than it is in the front and it's scratching the tops of the fenders on both sides.

Are these things easily removable? How do they come off? I"m wondering if it gets better if I remove the springs from the hinges...

 
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Panel alignment on the 71-73 Mustang is not an easy job. One can spend hours over hours on that. Usually the problem you describe is a matter of alignment of the fenders and the hood hinges. This is quite difficult.

The Mustang has fenders that are so flexible that you can twist an bend them in almost 1000 ways with the factory fasteners. Most funny is the fact that when you fasten a bolt on the rocker area attachment of the fender, there will also be a certain portion of movement in the upper part. And the front top bolts and the bolts behind the headlights will affect some longitudinal effects - not necessarily expected effects.

The easiest way to align the big panels is to loosen the fender bolts and then the hood hinge bolts. Move fenders to outward position. First adjust the the rear height of the hood. When this is to your satisfaction, adjust the horizontal position coarsely. To compensate height along the fenderline, shims under the upper fender bolts are used.

Carefully lower the hood and keep an eye on the gap to the fenders. There are four rubber wedges that keep the hood in place. When the hood/fender gap is too big, the hood has no guidance and wobbles horizontally. Precisely adjust the distance of the fender to the hood. Normally the gap is small and equal along the whole length of the hood. The fenders can be tuned in mor finely when you just use three upper bolts for raw adjustment and add the rest back in place later.

Some crucial adjustment to the fenders can also be made with the small fastener close to the upper door hinge. Have an eye on this bolt!

Good luck with your adjustments!

Michael

 
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Well, I started a new job and haven't had much time to play with this, but I did get a chance to loosen all the hinge bolts and wasn't able tog et it to move at all (even tried a big pry bar). I took a couple of pictures just so you can see the misalignment that I'm talking about. for the most part, it's suprisingly not bad except the back edge of the hood is about 1/2" lower than the fenders (in case you're wondering, that's frost on the car, but yea, it is kind of ratty :blush:):

2w2kl1s.jpg


11vh0tc.jpg


Should the hood hinges adjust in that direction and they're just stuck or am I barking up the wrong tree (don't particularly want to put a ton of force on them in case they shouldn't, and don't have someone to help me if I get them loose and it starts moving all over the place, so I kind of want to know what to expect before I get that big hood loose)?

 
Should the hood hinges adjust in that direction and they're just stuck or am I barking up the wrong tree (don't particularly want to put a ton of force on them in case they shouldn't, and don't have someone to help me if I get them loose and it starts moving all over the place, so I kind of want to know what to expect before I get that big hood loose)?
The hinges will move up & down...Do one side at a time loosen all three bolts not all the way leave them snug a bit..Having someone to pull up while you loosen tighten is a big help..if you max out on the up adjustment & it's still not enough then you can move the fender down to meet OR remove the hinge hog out the bolt hole to give you more adjustment...If the hinges are loose have play then you need to have them rebuilt..BEFORE you start playing with alignment..

See mine here

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-hood-hinge-repair?pid=98741#pid98741

 
WARNING

You need a second person

when the hood is open and you loosen the hinge bolts

You BETTER have someone holding the front edge of the hood, because it will come down on you.

DO NOT reach through the hinge to loosen the bolts - see to many guys do this- if it comes down it will crush bones if your arm is in there.

You also should have 3 round rubber bumpers on the cowl

4 fender to hood bumpers / wedge shaped

2 adjustable up front

 
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OK, so I know that they're supposed to move the way that I want them to, but they don't seem to... arg... sounds like I need to find someone to help me with it...

Anyone have pictures of the bumpers on the back? I don't think I have any and I don't remember a location to put them...

 
You also should have 3 round rubber bumpers on the cowl

4 fender to hood bumpers / wedge shaped

2 adjustable up front

Will missing these cuase the hood to drag on the wipers when opening?

 
Mine drags on the wipers and on the tops of the fenders, but I'm assuming it's a geometry thing from how the hood hinges work and them being mounted too low...

 
Mark I don't have an on the car pic but go to my web site and look up part

You can at see the bumpers

They go on LH, center and RH side of the cowl screen openings

They do help the back of the hood from dipping down

On your hinges I think you just need to get the back of the hinge up

I would mark the hinge location with tape and just move the back up 3/8 " and see how that goes

There are 3 bolts on the hinge to body side 1 is sort of hidden in the center

Don

All 3 mount in J nuts so they will move in all / any direction

 
When I pull up on my hood, the hinges pivot up and forward, dragging the back edge of the hood over the top of the fender (and when I say top I mean top, not the edge where the hood fits, more like maybe >1/4" past that across the top of the fender. How do I fix that?

While I'm at it, the back edge of the hood sits a little low, on most other cars I've owned there was some adjustment in the hood hinges, but most of the height adjustment happens with adjustable bumpers at the back edge of the hood and in the hood hinges. I don't see anything like that on mine. Is the only available adjustment on these cars with the hood hinge mount points?
::welcome::Silverback, I figure you have a NASA Hood, w/or w/out the functional ram air kit(does not weight that much but with my experiences w/going through 2 pairs of stock hood hinges, figured the Ford engineers never paid much attention to how sturdy they were to last very long. I'm looking at a set of billet hinges with shocks on them insted of the coil springs. Heard, once they are installed and adjusted, they'll never wear out. Just at moment can't remember what company supplied them. Incidentally, as I am not much past a newby, coming on board in mid November 2012 have a lot of back reading to catch up on all of you guys history, ie back in 2011 you wrote, about a 3" accross spider? I came up from Florida, 1983-2003, up to SW PA and question, have you ever heard of a "wood spider"? Do not know if they come up as far north to your area, the same with those red "Killer" ants. But those wood spiders, brown in color, very hairy and can really move. They burrow into the ground so do not know why they are called "wood" buy they do bite and really leave some big welts. People just laying on their lawn chairs in their yards and if you lay still long enough, they will crawl up and do a job on you. They love getting into the heating/air conditioning ducts as well when you open your door to your house/garage... they will charge and are able to jump @ 7-10' and will get through your entry way before you get a chance to close the door. They like to hang around on upper sides of walls to corners and ceilings. I heard a lot of those critters from Florida are slowly migrating further North. ::welcome::

 
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