Like many of you the hood hinges on my bird have seen some better days. For years I have been meaning to take them off and send them out for rebuilding over the winter but each spring I realize that I haven't done it yet. So I decided to attempt it myself, not with the stock rivet setup, but with bolts and flange bushings. In this manner the hinges would have several distinct advantages over the stock setup. The bushings would provide a thrust surface between the 2 surfaces, the bushings being oil impregnated would provide lubrication right at the pivot, the hinges would be able to be adjusted as the bushing surface wears and ultimately they would be rebuildable with a new set of bushings if required. Obviously a drawback is a not quite stock appearance, but for my car that isn't an issue. (I know for others it is and I can respect that. But my car is far from stock).

I have about $55 in hardware for a pair of hinges. I believe the going rate for a good rebuild with the stock rivets is ~$200 (extra to have them powdercoated). So there is room for value. Of course, I happen to have some tools in my garage necessary for this process that others may not...sandblast cabinet, air hammer, drill press, reamers, spot facer, and powdercoat gun (optional), but with the right amount of innovation, it could be done with other tools.

I first drilled out the peened side of the rivet deep enough to use the air chisel to pop the ends off and then the air hammer to drive the rivets out. Once disassembled, I blasted the old paint off each of the hinge pieces in the sandblast cabinet. The holes for the rivets are 1/2" on the big ends and 3/8" on the small ends. As the stock rivet set up wears, the holes get wallowed out of round. I drilled the 1/2" holes out to 35\64" and then reamed them out to 9/16". Reaming them provides a true round hole. I reamed the 3/8" holes to 10mm (yes, I know, it's metric, but it was required for the hardware being used). In a couple of places the surface of the member was knruled up after wearing for years on the rivet. These were knocked down to base material level with the spot facer.

I bought some sintered bronze bushings from McMasters. They are oillite bushings so they are impregnated with oil for lubrication. The bushings are 9/16" OD and 3/8" ID. I also bought some 10mm shoulder bolts. The machined shoulder is 10mm in diameter and 10mm in length. The threads are then 8mm. I had to ream the ID of the bushings to 10mm. Since the bushings are 1/2" long, I had to cut each one to fit in each specific hole. The bushings were then file fit to length to be flush for each hole.

The pictures show standard zinc washers and nuts but only because I am waiting on delivery of the black oxide ribbed washers for the bolt head side and the black oxide prevailing torque flanged lock nuts. I plan to powdercoat these semi-gloss black to match the other underhood features in my car. In this manner they can be powedercoated in pieces and then reassembled. The standard rebuilder offers coating but only as a hole assembly so it will not have complete coverage.

Assembly is straight forward to get enough preload on the bushing thrust surface to remove all side to side play, but not provide too much drag when operating. This is the adjustable feature that as the bushings wear, the fasteners could be snugged up to maintain proper compression on the joint.

So overall, while I only have a relatively small monetary investment into this process, I have a considerable amount of time in the details. But that's how I can afford to do things like this. I would go broke trying to buy the fancy shiny stuff out there. This allows me to have some functional personal touches on my car that I can take pride in each time I see them function.

Nice job Daryl!

Very cool, any chance you have a parts list?

Great idea and very nice job. Thanks for posting that.

Everyone knows, when you wash and wax your car, no matter the paint's condition, it goes faster.

Not as much of having part numbers (except for the bushings) but here's some screenshots of what I bought. If these are a violation of any of the forum rules, please let me know and I'll remove them.

Very nice work. Finished product looks great!

Great, thank you!

Thanks guys. I'll post more pics once I get the other side done and get around to powdercoating them. I need to clean the garage a bit to have access to my oven. Crap has a tendency to pile up over the winter.

I may offer this as a service to those interested but don't have the tools/desire to do it themselves. I'll pay more attention to what sort of time investment I have to see if a price would be acceptable. Now that I have the lay of the land with the first side, the other side should be a bit smoother.

Finally getting around to working on this again. Life gets in the way. One side is now done. I ended up just using the prevailing torque nuts without the ribbed washer. On the bolt head side I used a steel washer to sandwich a nylon washer which was greased. This provided the ability to insure that it is the machined bolt shoulder turning in the bushing ID instead of the mating member just pivoting around the bolt shoulder. I also had to expoy the bushings in place so that they wouldn't just spin in their bore. Just playing a game with relative friction to make sure to control motion where I want it and limit it where I don't.

I just started breaking down the other side and doing all the finish work on the holes. Still have to cut down the bushings, sandblast, powdercoat prior to having a whole set. It came out pretty good. It is nice and tight in terms of lateral deflection, but pretty smooth during its motion while opening and closing.