With the firewall finished, I moved on to assembling the panels to start correcting panel fit and gaps. I mounted the cab back on the frame along with the front clip after blasting the header panel and doing a bit of initial straightening on the inner fenders. The fenders and radiator support are aftermarket and the fit so far is really good, I haven't had to do any cutting, bending, or slotting of holes to get them to bolt together.

Attachment 279192


The new hood hinges held me up from getting the hood mounted. The old hinges were super worn and sloppy so the hood would never stay in alignment if they were reused, and reproductions were available. Their fit left a lot to be desired... with the mounting flange flat against the firewall the lower mounting hole was off by half of the bolt diameter.

Attachment 278988


Tilting the hinge to show how far the flange needed to be bent to align the lower mounting hole.

Attachment 278989


When the two bolt holes on the main flange were lined up the inner mounting flange was also off; not just width-wise but the shape of the flange didn't match the angle of the firewall.

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The curved lip on the back side of the inner flange interfered with the lip on the firewall so I reshaped it and ground it back to fit better, and so the edge had a shape that flowed better.

Attachment 278993


After about 40 trips between the firewall and vise to tweak the flanges into shape the hinge finally fit flat against the firewall and all four bolt holes were in pretty good alignment. Now when the bolts are tightened the flanges won't pull or twist the firewall out of shape, and won't chip the paint from the edges digging in.

Attachment 278994

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Same process on the other side.

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Very nice. Are you going to paint the hinges?

Yes, they'll need to be painted or plated to keep the bare spots from rusting.

I just read this from the beginning. Great work!

Long winded update hood hinge, I'll break it up into a few posts. The reproduction hinges ended up not working out once the hood was bolted on. Long list of problems with them-

1: The joints were too tight. I had to use a 24" adjustable wrench slipped over the flange that bolts to the hood to get the hinges to open and close, even with the spring off.

2: The individual arms are thinner and flexed easily which let the hood shift from side to side.

3: Each hinge angled outward front to rear by 5-7 degrees, so with the hood bolted on the already stiff joints were then in a bind from the joints on both sides not hinging parallel to each other. The thin and flexy arms somewhat minimized this problem :lol: This also made the flanges that bolt to the hood misaligned with the holes in the hood.

4: The passenger side hinge wouldn't fully drop as far as it should, so the back edge of the hood was kicked up above the cowl.

5: The joints were eating themselves. I cycled the hinges a few hundred times with the 24" wrench hoping they would "wear in" and loosen up, periodically adding oil to the joints to flush out the metal shavings that were building up. They eventually loosened up some but not enough.

6: The supplied springs were barely capable of holding the hood open, and not able to hold the hood all the way open. The hood has a section cut out at the very front for rust repair, no emblem, and the paint is stripped so it's lighter than a finished/painted hood. The friction in the joints were the main factor in the hood barely staying up. A full weight hood wouldn't have a chance at staying open.

7: The stops that set how far the hood opens were not shaped correctly.


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Well that sucks! I am in the process of deciding weather to buy new or restore my stock hinges. I wonder if all of the new aftermarket ones are the same or are some possibly better than others? Can you tell us where these were from? Right now I am leaning toward cleaning up and restoring my originals... Thanks very much for sharing your findings. It's too bad so much time has been invested in trying to fix something that should be much better to start with. I just used my new "dustless blasting" setup for the pressure washer to clean up mine... First time using it... less than $25 on amazon and I have been impressed... I have not yet determined if there is too much play in these, but they are cleaning up nicely.....

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.for...48ef4baccf.png

They were purchased from Dennis Carpenter, but they're not made by DC, just resold by them. I suspect they're all made by the same company. I'll make a dedicated post about them to warn others from making the same mistake of purchasing them, and the owner of the truck is looking into seeing if they can be returned since they're unusable. Since the hinges are what holds the hood in place (there are no bumpers to help position the hood side to side or up and down) it's critical that the hinges are tight and rigid to lock in the hood's position. I'll be making all of the trucks body panels align 100% flush, and I need hinges that repeatedly close in the exact same spot to do that.

After searching the forum for hood hinge info it seemed like the hinge rebuilding companies that others had used in the past were no longer willing to rebuild this style of F100 hinges, I think due to the hinge pin's rectangle shaped end that is used to rivet the pin in place. So, armed with the Atlas lathe and Bridgeport I set off to rebuild them myself.

I'm not a machinist, and certainly not very educated on how to properly use a lathe or milling machine... anything I've done with the lathe until now was just to rough out parts with no real need for precision. Preparing to make the lathe work correctly and then learning to use it somewhat correctly involved binge watching mrpete222, This Old Tony, and Blondihacks on youtube. The Atlas lathe was in desperate need of a tune up to make accurate parts; nothing was worn, whoever had it before us never really set it up correctly. None of the gibs were adjusted so there was play in everything. Eventually with considerable trial and error I figured out how to make a hinge pin.


I bought a Columbian 506 M2 vise awhile back but hadn't mounted it yet, so I went ahead and did that to hold the main hinge frame during the rebuild process.

Attachment 279054



I also recently found and bought an old Delta carbide grinder so I could shape and sharpen my own hss lathe bits and tune up the brazed carbide tools that came with the lathe. This would come in handy on the longer pin that the spring is hung from.

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Once back to the shop I started cleaning it to see if I could get it back down the the original paint. I'll get around to cleaning up the rest of it eventually.

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I checked the hinges on the parts truck and they were tighter than the original pair so I started with those.

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The arms fit flat against each other, which creates wear and friction. I addressed this during the rebuild.

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I carefully ground down the riveted end of the pins, and used the mill in the tighter areas where the grinder wouldn't fit.

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Pressing out the pins.

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Tons of wear and gouging. The metal was deeply pitted, likely from the metal galling.

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The link between the two main arms was thick enough to rub both arms, removing the coating and causing friction.

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The measurements show how worn the parts were.

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Good to know, thanks.

I was waiting to see how those after market hinges worked out for you. I bought a set 6 years ago to use on mine. They were junk then and evidently still are, They did not line up they would not close without extreme force so much so that I thought the hood would buckle. I threw them in the garbage and after a couple weeks of searching found an NOS set at a Ford dealer in Texas

Not sure what’s wrong with the imgur site. When I click the links I get Calvin and Hobbes.
Why not just post the pics this website instead of using image hosting?

The pics should show up automatically, not through links. Imgur is my best option to be able to type out one post and copy/paste it to each forum I use, this project is posted to five different forums. I've uploaded 1500+ pics to imgur for this project alone, so I wouldn't have time to upload each pic to each forum individually.

This was your first comment in this thread awhile back so it seems that you could see the pics back then, and I've used imgur exclusively in this thread from the start so something must've changed on your end since then? No one else in the 100k+ views between the five forums has mentioned that they can't see the pics.

More details on the hinge rebuild. The arms were out of alignment, none of the pivot points were parallel from one end to the other. Some had high and low spots along the friction surfaces.

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After straightening.

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All of the areas that were worn were welded up and ground/filed smooth. The holes were all reamed to make the exactly round again.

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Flatness was checked against a block of steel with a machined face.

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The pins were machined from 1" steel bar. I sized them for about .002" clearance for minimal play and room for grease. I also added .030" length to the shoulder so I could add a washer cut from UHMW. This will slightly cushion the joint, space the arms apart so they don't rub the paint off each other, and will reduce friction and wear in the joint.

Attachment 279046


.030" UHMW sheet from McMaster Carr.

Attachment 279047



Drilling/tapping for 5/16-24 hardware to hold the joints together. The original pressed rivets are not a precise way to hold the joints together so I didn't want to copy that aspect of the hinge pins.

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Milling the square ends that set the depth of the pin. This determines how tightly the joint is assembled so it was critical to measure the arms, UHMW washer, and on the main frame the offset of the raised friction surface. Too deep and the joint froze up, and the joint was too loose and wobbled if the depth wasn't cut deep enough. I ended up cutting the step slightly too low on purpose so I could remove material from the arms to incrementally loosen up the joint until it there was no play but no binding.

Attachment 279050


Compound set to 12.5" to cut a bevel in the head of the pins.

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One of the pins on each arm were longer with a groove to mount the spring. I used the Delta carbide grinder with the table set to 7* to reshape an old/broken 60* threading bit to match the shape of the original groove.

Attachment 279052

Very impressive

Thanks!


The finished pins, along with billet countersunk washers from All American Billet.

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https://i.imgur.com/8DSsewJh.jpg


This is where a lot of time was spent getting the joints dialed in. The pins were machined a few thousandths too short which made each joint too tight when the hardware was fully tightened. I assembled each joint but only lightly tightened the screws; this made the joints snug enough leave a visible contact pattern of where the head of the pin was rubbing the arm. Then I used the 2" grinder with a 100 grit disc to lightly sand down only the areas that were contacting. I did this repeatedly until the joints were just snug enough to not have any play, but loose enough to not bind.

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I also monitored the inside of the joints to make sure there weren't excessive high spots or weird wear patterns.

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Assembled joint with UHMW washer between the arms. The washer is barely noticable.

Attachment 279023


I didn't use UHMW between the larger friction surfaces of the main frame joints. These already had a wide friction surface from filing the area flat. I made these first and hadn't quite got the hang of setting the pin's shoulder depth yet, so they ended up loose at first. I used feeler gauges to check the clearance between the arms so to determine how much shorter to mill the shoulders.

Attachment 279024


The connecting link between the two main arms was thick enough to rub both of the arms, and the holes were worn oversize. The holes being worn allow one arm to move before the other when closing the hood, which makes the hinges "pop" when the link finally does start pushing the second arm into motion.

Attachment 279025


The link was a stamped part so one side isn't flat. I fixed that by milling it flat, and fixed the rubbing by milling it thin enough to fit UHMW washers on each side.

Attachment 279026


Checking clearance after the initial cut to know how much extra to shave for washer clearance.

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Machining bronze bushings to fit in the holes.

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Reassembled with washers after reaming the holes to precisely fit the pins.

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The last issue to address; adding the UHMW washers made each joint wider, which pushed each arm outward .030". The last arm to go on no longer lined up with the hood mount bracket, so I had to bend the arm slightly into a Z shape to compensate.

Attachment 279032


With that finished I had functioning hinges with no play and no binding. I hadn't done anything cosmetically yet so I disassembled them and used the 2" grinder to even out and smooth all of the stamping marks, then ran over all of the surfaces with a 3" DA and 60 grit to remove the grinding marks. After that I thoroughly scrubbed each part with Dawn, then Ospho to remove the fingerprint rust from handling bare steel parts. I lightly oiled them to prevent excessive rust during mock up until final disassembly and pain.

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