Need help with my hood dowel on my 53. It is loose. There is a square nut on the shaft inside the spring. It is not all the way up against the hood. How do you tighten it? Also one of my hinge bolts started, but won't tighten all the way. The washer is even loose.

 

Hey Pappy,
That square nut I believe should be welded up inside its upper support in the hood, and there should be a jam nut or a locking nut on top of it you will need to loosen to lenghten or shorten the hood dowel. This is assuming all the parts are still there. But over the years those square nuts have been known to break off from the welds and it all floats around as you are opening or shutting the hood
Mine does that as a matter of fact. So I put very large, thick fender washers in under the now detached square nut. Adjusted the length of the hood dowel, tightened the locknut down, and it opens or shuts very well and most importantly it stays closed even on very windy days or when semis stream by while passing me by in the opposite lane. Don't get me wrong, I am not endorsing this as a correct, safe, repair, I am just saying it works for me. Because of this change, after shutting the hood, I have to slightly press down on the hoods front, while pulling the hood relase lever. When I hear a "pop" I know the dowel spring has pushed the dowel down into the hood latch. A couple of tugs up on the front of the hood and you know its latched and ready to drive.
About your hood bolt. Sounds like the nut welded up inside is stripped. Hopefully it is still welded in. A couple of options I have used. A thread repair tap with a new hood bolt. Then before threading the new hood bolt in applying some thread lock on it. If its a bottom hood nut, you might be able to simply slip a 5/16 fine threaded nut in the opening in the hood nut support just behind the loose hood bolt. There no access unfortunately to do that to the top. Use safety wire tying the two bolts together. Or you may want to upgrade the hood bolts to 3/8 inch ones (Mid-Fifty stocks them) by carefully drilling and tapping the hood nuts for the new 3/8 size. Then again safety wire them together. Or Mid-Fifty has a hood nut repair kit which uses expanding sleeve nuts. Again use the safety wire. Believe me you do not want a hood nut falling out. Its very hard to wrestle the hood up if you loose one.

Edit:
Corrected hood bolt size to 5/16" when backing it up with a fine thread nut if you have access.

 

how did you know where to sit the adjustmentof the spring? Trying to get it off which isn't going too well

 

After loosening the lock nut that is tightened against the square nut, with a big screw driver on the lower end of the dowel, just run the dowel down until you get it to latch. Once you get it to latch then you can fine adjust the tightness of the hood with either giving it more dowel or less. You might also have to loosen and adjust the position of the hood latch itself on top of the upper radiator valance. Once you are done just tighten the locknut on your hood dowel and you should be done. Hopefully with the hood off, you were able to lubricate the hinge spring pivots. That is important as it helps the back of the hood "roll down" when shutting it. Some of us have issues with these hoods rears "rolling " or popping itself up slighty while driving it. The hood stays down in the front but when you get out of the truck you will notice that you need to push the rear of the hood down on each side. They say the two things that help with that is adjusting the hood latch on the radiator valance slightly forward. And or adjusting by slightly lowering the the hood hinges where they bolt on to the cab. I havent tried those things but have read about them here on FTE.