Trouble with hood hinge - need advice

[Guy Dudebro]

I took off the hood of my 67 c10 to paint it. Putting everything back together, bolted on the hinges. Placed the hood on the hinges, bolted three bolts from the hinge to the hood. But the fourth one must have lost its nut. See pics below.
So the hood won't close all the way. I have to set a cinder block on the back passenger side of the hood to make the weight enough on the hinge to shut.

I tried putting a rubber well nut up there but that didn't work. Is there a way to get inside the hood, take off the mounting where the hinge attaches to the hood, and put another speed nut in there?

Any help is appreciated.

[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by Guy Dudebro

Any help is appreciated.

First off, let's get that hood off and never prop it up like that again, that is one way to break those thread-nuts out.

I was trying to think of a sneaky way to fix that, like expanding anchors and such but I'm not sure how much clearance you have and it would be risky as the bolts would be long and you would have to be careful not to bottom out the bolt and put a big dent into the top of the hood. And not sure if you can get 3/8", and you would likely have to put a new one on every time you R&R the hood and that would create a lot of rattles.

You will probably have a rattle now with just one nut clanking around in there. I'm thinking you should take it to a body shop for repair and hope they don't mess up the paint.

I suppose you could cut a slot adjacent to that to install a large threaded clip? Maybe use that to fish out the rattle-nut?

[Guy Dudebro]

OK. Thanks. I think maybe the nut fell out when I was moving the hood to paint. I'll try the anchor idea this weekend. Probably my best bet. Thanks for the help.

[65standard]

Mine wouldn't tighten up because the nuts inside were spinning. I just put about a 3/8" long weld bead in two spots to hold it. If needed later, I'll just use a cut-off wheel to remove the weld bead.

This was a super fast solution.

[Lanman1972]

Search: Rivet Nut, i get mine from McMaster-Carr. Maybe someone in your area has the insert tool to borrow.

[71swb4x4]

Originally Posted by Lanman1972

Search: Rivet Nut, i get mine from McMaster-Carr. Maybe someone in your area has the insert tool to borrow.

I was going to post the same thing. I think a rivet nut is your answer.

[Grumpy old man]

First off a rivnut isn't going to work there's just to much stress the hood will never close right again , the right way to fix it is to remove the hood and cut out the bad section and weld in another nut plate and touch up the paint after .

When scrapping front fenders I cut the fender hood hinge mounting sections off the junk fender and save them just to fix this situation you have here . welding in a replacement section under the hood shouldn't effect the paint on the top side . If you need a section with the nut to repair yours I have a bunch of them and can ship you one to help fix your issue .

You could just cut an access flap on the back of the hood hinge mounting area and get a nut and bolt in but it looks like the area where the hinge bolts to the hood is already stretched out of shape and it won't mount flush like it should .

theres a lot of stress in that area so a quick fix probably will leave you with a hood that just won't close and align right .

Many times you'll see where an access flap has been cut to get to those back nuts when they have come loose and you need to get the hood off. Grease those hood hinges .