(http://www.mustangmods.com/ims/u/225/588/104152.jpg)
:shoothead
and for how i removed them.......
Disclaimer:
if you live by the seat of your pants, this STILL may not be for you! exercise extreme caution. you are about to remove a spring with a lot of tension.
with that said, proceed to the removal process.
step 1:
using a pry bar and a flat head screwdriver. pry against the edge of the spring using the pry bar. the strut stud was a good pivot point. now once you have created a gap between the spring and pin, quickly shove the flat head screwdriver underneath the spring and then over the top of the bracket.
(http://www.mustangmods.com/ims/u/225/588/104151.jpg)
(http://www.mustangmods.com/ims/u/225/588/104153.jpg)
you are now done with the pry bar.
step 2:
repent sins
step 3:
with your soul now cleansed, step to the side of the car. the screwdriver should be facing you. using a LONG piece of pipe, or another screwdriver/pry bar, and a hammer. strike the top of the spring to slide it off toward the handle of the screwdriver. the spring will not go far, especially if working on the drvier side. once removed on the driver side, you will now need to unbolt the wiper motor, and twist it slightly to remove the spring completely.
step 4:
you are now done! give yourself a pat on the back.
you sir, are one brave dude
But Why??
if you have a fiberglass hood, the stock springs will be too strong for it. you'll wind up cracking or breaking the hood.
Heh...now let's see you put them back on. ;)
I did what you did, once, off the car...and I was in fear of losing a finger. That sure takes some cojones to remove them on the car.
f I ever had to remove the springs I'd simply heat em with a torch (off the car) to relieve the spring tension. Once the metal turns red it doesn't have any more springiness (and doesn't regain it when it cools, so the springs would be garbage, but once they're off they're garbage anyway). Of course the hinge would end up needing paint, but it'd be a helluva lot safer than prying 'em off under tension...
I wonder carm if you could get that just right and just lower the tension so that it would still hold a fiberglass hood up.
thats what cheap gas struts are for...
...Or a broom handle :hick:
Claude: I dunno if that would work or not, seeing as I've never seen a glass hood in person, so I don't know how strong they are in the hinge area
How to injure your self 101:pbb:
Nice how-to post though.
Or pick up some earlier hinges...
BINGO. Earlier, non-spring loaded hinges + Mark VII bolt-on spring mechanism = joy for fiberglass hoods.
(http://www.coolcats.net/ximages/hoodhinge.jpg)
When I opened this, the first thing I saw was those 2 springs.......I figured you sent one or both flying pretty far hence the adrenaline rush.
or you can just undo that little clip on that arm and the relieves the tension so the hood can go up and down and then you can yse it as a prop to hold the hoood up like i did
yup, that was pretty easy. i then cut the entire spring section off and ground it down smooth and am using a prop rod untill i get some shocks for a newer mustang hood later on.
Eric,
When you did your prop rod to hood spring conversion, did this part of the hinge come off of the Mark VII too?
I don't have that bar on my stock hinge, just the rear two.
Thanks,
Brent
Yes...it's held onto the stock hinge by a clip up at the top, and on the bottom it bolts in. The coil is in the middle of the whole add-on section. I believe it's a stock-type GM midsize hood hinge coil...I bought some Monte Carlo coils with different tension rates, just in case the Mark VII springs weren't going to work, but never had to use them. These coils seem to be under a lot less tension than the stock 1987-88 T-Bird/Cougar ones. If they ever need changed...no real threat of losing a finger or two. ;)
Ok, this is making more sense to me now, I though I was just going after the spring by itself.
So is removing it from a wrecking yard doner going to be just a matter of unbolting the add-on piece as an assembly or is there more to it than that?
:sorry:, just trying to cover all the bases. I'm not removing them and I will to have to explain the procedure to a friend of mine who located the Lincoln for me. I want to make sure I tell him what he will need to expect in the removal process so that this favor he is doing doesn't backfire on me.
Brent
Ah, gotcha. No, it is literally as simple as unbolting them from the hinges. Like I said, there's not much tension on the whole thing. But be sure that he gets the clips and the bolts because they're hard to find otherwise.
Cool, that is just what I needed to know, I'll pass it along.
Thanks again !!
Brent
You, sir, are a crazy person.
:eek:
You're brave, really brave :crazy:
I bought the same year set off of a friend on tstacc.com( brian LArkin) and cut the spring off and just used teh rest of it to hold the hoood on and got a prop rod out of an old stang.