Time to close the hood and take the Imperial out for a test drive. Except the hood won’t close…
I’ve been having ongoing trouble with the hood. The rear corner on one side where the hinge is won’t go down all the way when you close the hood. I have to press down on this corner to completely close the hood. Annoying, but I’ve been dealing with it. Even replaced this hinge a couple of years ago, which temporarily fixed the problem.
This shouldn’t be happening. Unlike lesser cars, the Imperial hinge has a set of gears built into the four bar hinge linkage that should guarantee that the hinge goes down when the hood is closed.
But now the corner of the hood won’t go down no matter how hard I press on it. Time for some serious trouble shooting.
The hood and hinge are black on black in a shadowed black engine bay, so grab a flashlight and start carefully going over the entire hinge.
Whoa! The back of the hinge where it is bolted to the hood is sticking way up. The hinge is badly bent. No, wait – the back of the hinge is three quarters torn apart, twisted, and bent!
Hmm, this is the same place where I noticed cracking in the old hinge… And it is the location where the hood puts maximum stress on the hinge.
If the hinge was bending just a little bit it would explain why the back of the hood was sticking up a little bit. And as the hinge tore and bent more the problem would get worse and worse – exactly what has been happening!
With the actual problem identified the solution is obvious: remove the hinge, weld it up, and put it back together. Since the metal was stretched and torn it took a bit of filing, grinding, and hammering to get it back in shape for welding. But it was pretty straightforward. Hit it with a shot of black paint and let it dry over night.
Put the hinge back on the car and carefully close the hood… Both back corners of the hood smoothly go down and the hood closes properly. And there was much rejoicing!
Is the problem finally solved? I doubt it. It has happened twice with two different hinges. I can’t identify a reason why there would be more stress on one side of the hood, but it seems to be happening. Perhaps it is simply because the hood has been opened and closed frequently throughout the restoration?
In any case I now know what to look for. I will keep a close eye on the hood. If there are any signs of the problem cropping up again I will heavily reinforce the hinge with more steel. I have a rough idea for a design that would make the factory hinge much stiffer and stronger. The only downside is that it is a visible change, so I would need to modify both hinges.
After all that the test drive went smoothly.