Thread: Cowl and hood lacing/oversize hinge pins

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I used a piece of vacuum hose in the original hood install in my 32.

Later on, I went to the stock stuff.
It's working well and any not quite perfect areas are more a fault of hood/cowl and hood/grille shell fit rather than the lacing style.

Sometimes the paint thickness bit gets you.
Happened to me.
I had a pretty good fit and after paint had to raise the hood up on the right side - where it's hinged - for clearance.
That threw things off a bit, but not so bad I couldn't run it as it was.

What would cure the problem is to make a new pair of 1/2" x 1" rectangular tubing cowl to grille shell braces that sit a bit lower.
Live and learn.

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As for the oversized hinge pins -

The new re-pro cast stock style hinges that came on my Wescott body rattled around a bit.
I think the two parts are probably drilled separately during manufacture and that's why the poor fit there.

I jigged the hinges together and drilled them to 5/16"
A couple of stainless 5/16" bolts with the hex machined a little thinner and top center machined down a bit for looks along with a pal style nylock stainless lock nut took all the play out.

The bolts as hinge pins are right there in plain sight and in 14 years of running the car no one has ever commented on them.

Pal nuts are the thin nuts, about half the thickness of a regular nut.
You can find stainless pal nylocks at Orchard Supply and other places that carry a good supply of stainless bolts & nuts.
I'm finding most of what I need in stainless - as well as regular steel - at my local True Value and Ace hardware stores.

I've given up trying to find bolts & nuts at Home Despair.

Hood lacing and trim on Brookville bodies and grille shells does not look nice - Vintique, Bob Drake and others have two different size molded foam lacing that is quite nice. If you do want to use the original style, you have to 'season' it by beating with a hammer to flatten out somewhat.

Brookville hinges are, for no better word, CRAP. Though mine is a '31A, the hinges were so bound up that they actually kinked the right door, the left just squealed. I ordered some 5/16" oil lite bushings from McMaster-Carr along with some hardened round stock and 6-32 set screws and went to work. The '31 hinges are only flat stock, rolled to fit the pin. I welded up the open ends, drilled for the bushings and reamed as an assembly for the pins, then set screwed it all in place. The only discrepancy is that there is no rounded head on the pins(yet).

Home Depot fasteners around here are distributed by Crown Bolt, and are poor quality Chinese made. Lowe's stuff is a bit better. Tractor Supply fasteners seem to be somewhere between the other two.