Unhinged

I spent yesterday with my wife to celebrate her birthday, so I didn't work on the car.  Today I only had 4 hours to work on the car, so I was eager to get started.  I was going to work on the under hood electrical wiring, so I decided that it would be good to fix the hood springs first.  Paint guy mentioned that the springs seemed a little weak when he put them in, but he couldn't figure out how to tighten them.  The springs were so weak in fact that the slightest breeze would push the hood over, and it would slam shut... not good if my head or torso is over the engine compartment!

What I thought should be an easy task took the entire time!  The hood hinges are up under the nose of the car (the hood tilts forward on old T-birds).  The hood springs are coil shaped, and rather hard to get to.

 I could get the springs off, but I couldn't manage to put them back on with the additional half-turn of tension that they needed.  I worked on this for over an hour, and even started making a special tool to reach up inside the nose of the car to tension the spring.

Finally, it became clear that the hood would have to come off, so I could remove the hinges and install the springs on the bench!I really didn't want to take the hood off!  Paint guy had done a good job aligning the hood, and I didn't want to risk messing it up!  Still, if I marked the hood carefully, and got a couple of friends to help, maybe this would be OK.  I used a sharpie to mark the position of the hinges on the hood.

 Then with the help of Uncle Packard and #1 son, we removed the hood and the hinges.  With the hinge on the bench, #1 son and I were able to get the extra half-turn on the spring.  This involved multiple attempts using a wide variety of tools, but finally we prevailed with a set of very large channel lock pliers and a seal puller.

With the tightened spring in place, I greased the hinge liberally, then exercised the action

It was clearly much stiffer, and now it didn't squeak any more!  Excellent!
The three of us then re-installed the hinges and the hood, carefully lining up my marks.  The alignment was pretty close, and after another half-hour or so, the hood lined up pretty well.   The springs worked superbly, and the hood no longer has a tendency to fall on an unsuspecting mechanic.

This doesn't seem like much for half-a-day's work, but still I am satisfied.