Anyone have expierence with hood stiffeners?

[MM in NM]

I'm going to have to reinforce my hood before I paint it up. I see the commercially avialable stiffeners but also have a Blazer parts truck that has a home made job made from a piece of (about) 1/2" angle iron.

I'd sure be interested in any of your expierences.

[SSC's76]

I robbed a set from a junk yard. If your hinges are bad they wont save it, ive got creases in my old hood to prove it. The one other thing I dident like they tend to raise the hood slightly above the fender. Of course they could be a worth while investment as long as the hinges are good and your willing to adjust the fenders or live with a slight high spot. I'll take a pic tomorrow.

[86swb]

Why do you need to reinforce your hood? Unless you lay on it or something like that I do not see the reason to do this. Is it in good shape now or bent in?

[SSC's76]

Dident think it would be hard to get a good pic of the crack the stiffeners dident protect against. Anyway you can slightly see it on the left side of the pic. Also notice the hood doesent seat level with them on, of course theres a few reasons it doesent one happens to be the bend.

[TwinTurbo]

Is that a fiberglass hood? If so, you can easily reduce tension of the spring, take it off and reinstall on the slotted pin 1/2 a turn off, that'll do it. This won't keep a steel hood up though

[SSC's76]

Originally Posted by TwinTurbo

Is that a fiberglass hood? If so, you can easily reduce tension of the spring, take it off and reinstall on the slotted pin 1/2 a turn off, that'll do it. This won't keep a steel hood up though

No thats the stock steel hood. You can bearly see it in the one pic but I took the springs off completely to get it to sit level as possible. The only way to get it to sit perfectly level is to adjust the fenders, the hinges have no more adjustment left in them. Of course if you do adjust the fenders the door body line will suffer. I dont know if I'm going to use these stiffeners with the new cowl hood.

[SSC's76]

Guess you can see the removed springs in that one.

Might as well get a pic of the stash.

[Prerunner1982]

the earlier hoods tend to bend in the middle, common problemi have heard the stiffners dont work well. you could always just remove the springs and use a prop rod.

MM in NM, where in NM are you?
SSC where in CO are you?

[SSC's76]

Originally Posted by Prerunner1982

the earlier hoods tend to bend in the middle, common problemi have heard the stiffners dont work well. you could always just remove the springs and use a prop rod.

MM in NM, where in NM are you?
SSC where in CO are you?

I'm in the middle so to speak, Pueblo.

Needed to mention your not supposed to use these on fiberglass hoods at all. Instead of the normal break points it will break at the end of the support. My Buddy use one similiar to mine on his Nova's fiber glass hood snaped right at the end, then he decided lift off hood was the right choice, 75MPH the pins break the hood flys under the tires of an 18 wheeler.

[MM in NM]

I live in the mountians about 30 miles east of Albuquerque and south of I-40.

I'm doing a once over on my 79 Scotsdale to use it as a driver. I'm sure it'll look nice when it's done in a month (or so) but nothing special. I'm running into a LOT of "May as well" problems and projects. The whole reason I decided to do it was because I had a complete parts truck with almost pristine, i.e. practically rust free, body parts.

So, I have a choice of two hoods to use on this thing but one is cracked and busted but not really bent. The other was cracked, busted but welded some time ago. If I'm going to paint up either one I was thinking of just stiffening the one I'm going to use and then paint it all up.

I've owned and driven maybe a half dozen of these things (from my 76 K20 which I still have to my old 73 Suburban which is long gone, a Blazer and a couple of C trucks) over the last 30 years and never had much problems with hoods. One reason is I've been aware of the problem so when the hoods start getting stiff I lube the hinges. This 79, since I'm going over it, I thought I may as well stiffen it up and had hoped that someone had a "backyard" fix so I could save the $20 bucks (or so) for other parts. I'll be coming to the hood pretty soon here so will have to make a decision soon enough.

Here's a pic of both hoods I have. One cracked and one welded some time ago (and rusty around the welds).

[MM in NM]

Here's a pic of the underside of a hood on a parts 76 Blazer I have in the back 40. The hood was cracked, broke and bent on the passenger side so it appears the previous owner decided to use a piece of angle iron to fix it. Seems it did a pretty good job but then, since the stiffener didn't extend back under the hinge, the hood then cracked between where the angle iron stiffener ended and the front of the hood hinge began.

I guess I'm going to think about this hood issue a little more and probably go poke around my scrap steel pile. Perhaps make something up as there's a lot of room under there or buy a set of commerical stiffeners. I'm also going to think about just removing the springs and bending up a rod hood prop as suggested. Hinges seem crappy enough as they are and seem over strssed with the springs on there.. I wish someone would already have thought up a hinge upgrade kit with new pins and bushings. I'm probably thinking about that as I just got the door hinge rebuild kit from Chevy Duty today that looks really nice with new brass bushings rather than the original crappy plastic bushings. Would be great to have a kit like that for the hood hinges. Seems to me like this whole hood/hinge thing is another design flaw just like the crappy rust protection on certain places in these trucks.

[Prerunner1982]

thanks guys, was just curious.... my parents live in southwest CO and i grew up around south east NM, but have traveled through north central ( I-40 to Clines Corners and north though Santa fe, where my aunt, uncle, and grand mother live)....

[SSC's76]

The prop rod works well but after a year of use it does get kinda old having to lift the heavy hood up. You could get a new hood for $110 and new hinges $25 a peice. Should be at least a 20 year fix. I still need to buy hinges I'd hate to have a $400 hood go to crap the first time I closed it.