hood hinge springs

John ED Renstrom

John ED Renstrom

PCS Member
Super Site Supporter
I got asked today how to take off the springs on a hood hinge. hard to describe as I just take them off. never though it was anything. getting so getting up and down now is more work then anything else. but here is how I do. remove hinge then go get vice grips with the big curve in the jaws. clamp the jaws tight together around the rear hoop of the spring. pliers should be loose on the spring. put both feet against the hinge the pull the spring to the top. you have to move it 1/8 of a inch to get it out of the slot and its off.
 

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With the springs off, is there any slop in those hinges? My guess is that you can't tell with the spring tension on the hinge pivot points.
 
OK, now that we've covered the hard way, go out and get yourself a box of good sized 3 inch nails. Open hood part way, put a nail in between each coil, open hood all the way and watch spring fall off. (I've only ever tried it with the hood on, but there may be a way to make it work with just the spring assembly as well...)
 
if that's so easy what you going to do with 300 lb of hood and no springs. fine if you just changing one or changing them both one at a time. but we are disassembling so we can sent them in to be re plated. open there is no tension on the spring. all I did was move it out of the slot. had I taken them off with the hood on then tried to remove the hood we would have had big trouble. with the hood off you can't collapse the hinge to put the pins in between the coils. so now you got this old spring with the pins in between the coils and a new one with out. how you going to get the pins in a new spring with it off the hinge? sorry I like my way one tug they off one tug they are back on. simple
 
Hey, if it works for you, knock yourself out (literally)! At least you have a couple ambulances there to choose from when you shoot your intestines out, or the hinge ends up in your forehead. You must be working on an armored car too, if you have something there with a 300 pound hood on it.

For anyone else that cares, my way may take a little longer, but it works, I just tried it again. A 2x4 does a wonderful job of holding the hood up if you don't have a helper there (which you should, if you are removing a hood). Large washers work even better because you can run a piece of string through them so they don't go all over the place when you expand the spring. As for off the vehicle, if you put a hood hinge spring in a vice you can bend it to almost 90 degrees without much effort. Using washers I was able to expand a hood spring by about 1/2 an inch in about 30 seconds, which should be more than enough for most applications.
 
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