Hood Hinge FabricationLet me start with a disclaimer:Having owned H-Body cars for more years than I can count the one thing that has bugged me or I should just say I out and out dislike is the "Front" opening hood of the early GM H-Body cars. Its a poorly designed and executed feature wrapped around an absolute horrible pin setup. The cheap approach GM went to with these early offerings is never more evident when you want to remove or replace your hood. For the longest I thought it was e bad joke that some pissed off GM designer was playing. I downloaded a video to my YouTube channel which sort of explains the Disclaimer. BTW, in this video I mistakenly called the Header panel the Cowl, Excuse the brain fart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecI6xo3iLSgDateline: Saturday the tenth of February, a cold gray overcast winter day that begins close to 60 F degrees early morning day break and dropping rapidly. The hood hinge setup GM designed completely wore out and in need of attention immediately because opening and closing the hood was impossible. The original pin design had to go. I started by removing the welded pins from the hood hinge arms. I then machined up a couple of stainless steel bushings which fit a 3/8 inch threaded shank bolt. I then machined out the SJ hinge plates on the core support or what was left of them to accept the new bushings. Couple of welds later the hinge plates and new bushings are ready to accept the 3/8 bolt which is almost the exact size of the original GM pins. So... the hinge arm is held in place to the bushing by the 3/8 bolt sandwiched between two stainless washers with a self locking stainless nut to hold it all tightly together. A bit of heavy grease on the parts and the hood opens and shuts with almost pure perfection.
Sunday Update:Hood is installed and is aligned better than the factory thanks to the new pin set up. It pains me to talk negatively about GM and the Vega hood design but I think I have earned the right after four decades of ownership. Every time I see an H-body hood it's almost a personal embarrassment these cars rolled off the assembly line looking as poorly as they did. BTW, sunny and 38 degrees F today, that works for me...or not.
