Hood hinges on older cars: What makes them stick??

[Deleted]

I have a pair of hood hinges from an old Chevelle that I am listing on ebay.

One of the hinges worked flawlessly, while the other side wanted to stick.

What makes these old hinges stick? Dirt? Grime? Rust?

 

[hermitjohn]

Yes to all! Squirt some ATF around the pivot points and work it back and forth until it moves easily. Probably lot easier if you can remove the spring. ATF is great for hood hinges, door latches, etc.

I have had great success soaking the actual door latches off the Festiva and the old Ranger overnight in little trough of ATF (cut the top off an old ATF bottle). Latch is the piece held to door by three or four flush machine screws. And the ATF treatment lasts. Saved me some money far as old Ranger, replacement latch expensive, cheaper to drive 50 mile to a pick a part junkyard and buy whole dang door. No new latch was available for the Festiva.

Now stupid Ford engineers that decided using a sheathed cable to go from interior door latch handle and the actual latch was good idea... While I had latch out, I welded on small arm in direction needed, so I could just run piece of old coat hanger from the latch to the inside handle. Worked fine, eliminated the expensive discontinued cable. Thats how Ford originally designed the really early ranger door latches. Go from something simple and cheap that works, to something complicated and expensive that is PITA and parts no longer available after few years. Its the way of the modern world.

[Deleted]

Many times the brackets start to collapse and bend causing the hinge point to not work right....James

[hermitjohn]

Usually the hood that bends when hinges get wonky, dont know that I have ever seen hinges themselves bend. Course back when hoods were made more solid, suppose hinge might bend first???? Hood would bend on the 70s era Chevy pickups. Also the Volvo 240s. Assume others, those were ones I had lot problem with. Also those Chevy pickup hoods were incredibly heavy for some reason, no idea why. I think part of it was by that era, hoods were designed to crumple in an accident, thus weakening them. So when hinges got reluctant, it was the hood that gave. Thinking back, never had problem with hoods on 60s and older stuff. You just lubed hinges once in a while and no problems.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies!!

I was shocked to learn how heavy the old hinges are. The pair weighs 13 pounds! No wonder gas mileage was so poor in so many older cars!

[willowgirl]

My Ranger hood release got wonky awhile back. The only way to open it was to pull on the handle under the dash while someone simultaneously thumped the middle of the hood. Since I can't be in two places at once, this forced me to rely on the kindness of strangers! Embarrassing. Numb fixed it for me.