Last winter I bought a pair of reproduction hood hinges on eBay from Classic Auto Parts Group in Oklahoma City. I think they used to be Obsolete Ford Parts in OKC. They only cost $89.

It took me several months to get around to painting them and another couple months to put them on! Things move slowly in rural Central PA sometimes! I thought I would need a helper to take the hood off and then back on. That held me up as my go to helper and I could not pick a day when we were both free.

I knew some of the guys here did it themselves so I figured I could. So I did one side at a time. I hooked a strap to the back of the hood to my overhead door track and had my broomstick prop in the front. And just in case I put some towels on the cowl to protect it from scratches.

The hood stays up now, no prop needed. It opens and stays open 21" measuring from the hood latch to the bottom of the hood lip.

The hinges do not pull the hood down in the back however. What must I do to fix that?





Do I recommend these hinges? If I can adjust them so that it pulls the back down, then I strongly recommend.

 

 

Not sure if this will help but was scanned from the 56 manual

 

Thanks John.

 

Abe- Im glad the hinges worked out, If you recall I was waiting for you to try them out, Looks like Ill be placing an order in the hear future. Ive got some catching up to do around here, I got real busy this past month and haven't logged in to anything FTE. I was wondering about your hinge status so i took a moment today to check for a update. Good job on changing them out by yourself.

 

Hi Abe,

I wish you good luck with the adjustment of that hinges.

It took me several hours, a lot of cursing, sweat, more cursing and a lot of patience to adjust those damn things. I ended up with enlarging the holes in the cab on one side. Probably you'll need to adjust the hood support rods as well! If you want the back of hood down at the drivers side, then you must apply more tension to the rod that goes to the front of the passenger side and for the other side likewise. Afterwards You'll have to look for the adjustment of the hood latch. All these adjustments are connected to each other. I already had a front tilt kit ordered but since I like it stock, the ambition to adjust the hinges took hold of me and so at last I made it.

Oh - not to forget: keep several bottles of cold beer at hand! That'll help to cool down

 

Always good advise!

 

Always adjust hoods , doors etc with the latches removed then install and set the closing mechanism . This way an out of adjustment latch does not make you think that your hood , door , trunk adjustment is out .

 

I have spent many hours (honestly...more like days...) trying to get my stock hinges to work properly. Anyone with these hinges knows that they were designed to do two things: one is hold the hood in an open position and the other is to snug the hood down onto the cowl in the closed position. And, I have learned that the more hinge arms pass through the "neutral position", where they neither hold the hood open nor snug it closed, the greater the force is at the hinge arms to do their job. This is a long way of saying that the higher the hinge plates are mounted on the side of the cab, the more downward travel the hinge arms have to move, and so the greater the force is that snugs the hood into position. So, if the hood is sitting high at the cowl, raising the hinge plates a bit and pulling them a tad closer to the front is one possible way to adjust them to get the hood to fit tighter at the cowl. This all seemed counter-intuitive to me at first, but I learned that this is the way that the hinges work. Of course there are other variables, such as shape of the hood (adjusted by the rods in the hood) and the alignment of the front sheetmetal. Also, the hinge plates may be in good position up and down, but may have to be moved forward or backward. And, of course, the hinge plates can be rotated ever so slightly, which will also affect to hood fitment. In general, I found it easiest to come up with a way to hold the hood open with bungies from the rear of the hood to something overhead and a prop at the front. That way, I can take the hinge pivot bolts out and make small adjustments to the plate. The last I do is attach the latching plate for the dowel. But, the position of the latching plate can also make a difference in overall fit, as it can move the front of the hood a little bit in either the sideways or front and back position. My experience is that the latching plate position is only good for very small tweaks in the hood alignment. I think that, ideally, the hood should align well without the latch plate, and then the final location of the latch plate can be better determined. I'd be very interested in hearing how others on this forum have tackled hinge adjustment. It is a pain in the butt, and I can see why so many folks give up and opt out for forward tilting hoods.

 

Don't order them just yet! They hold the hood open real well but I have not been able to get them to bring the hood down in the back yet. I will continue to tinker with them.

 

I started this thread on August 22. I bought the hinges last winter.

So today I passed up the chance to go to the PSU v Indiana football game and sit in a luxury suite owned by a college fraternity brother and have free tailgate food, beverage, and food in the suite. It holds 16 people. This guy lives in Florida and owns a house in State College just for football and wrestling events at Penn State. His tailgate bus was living at 9:30 for a 3:30 kick-off. I would have gotten about 9:00pm. I decided not to go so I could stay home and work on my truck.

If you saw my thread about the hood hinge springs being wound too tight... https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ge-spring.html, I discovered that they were. The new hinges held the hood open real well but they didn't bring the back down when closed. Two grown men pushing down on the back of the hood could not push it down.

I took the hinges off, removed the springs, lubed the pivot points, per Ax Racer's instructions, moved the arms back and forth many times over the next couple of weeks, then put the springs back on as they appeared on my old hinges and on my 55 F350.

I put the hinges on today. The big moment.... I closed the hood. It closed easy and the back pulled down with out me pushing it down! But the hood will not stay open! But as my wife said the hood is closed more than it is open. And I can't drive it with the back of the hood up 6 inches. So I will carry my sawed off shovel handle in the truck to hold the hood open. And I drove the truck alot today and that was better than going to a football game!

Back of hood is down


The right corner matches the fender real well.... It didn't with the old hinges. I do have some touch up to do as the right side of the hood was too tight with the old hinges and caused some chipping.


The left corner still sticks out but this is how it was even way back pre 1999 before I painted the truck the first time. My truck had been in an accident. It was hit on the left side and I think that's what caused the problem.

 

Your next batch of cookies should come with the instructions for the forward tilt hood abe...

 

I found that leaving the hinge bolts on the sides of the cowl loose (on the cab) then do the other adjustments. Then close the hood on the latch before tightening the cowl bolts solved that problem. There is enough movement in the bolt locations to allow the hood to lay even with the top of the cowl. Hope this helps.

 

Good choice on your decision to work on truck vs. going to game!