front luggage compartment hinge repair

[toopaul]

After searching treads I was not able to find a step by step repair for spring loaded hinge repair. I offer my technique and hopefully it will save you some time and headache. The first thing was to grind off top pin holding spring in place. My lower clip had already popped loose and was sitting down in void and the rod going thru the spring was badly bent as I'm sure most of the one needing repair are too. After grinding pin it needed to be punched out and things go flying as this spring under considerable load, so watch out at this point for flying projectiles. After bending rod straight I rigged up my valve spring compressor with a socket on top so as to be able to insert temporary rod where pin use to be holding everything together.

This rod must be small enough to be pushed thru hole on hood by permanent screw and nut when installing back into car. I cut both ends off of rod once spring was compressed and load was back on spring assembly so it was flush with spring cap. Sorry I didn't get pic of this. The PVC pipe I use to protect rod bending was 11/8" p-trap material used under sink for drains, you might find other pipes but this fit perfectly. Now the hard part, getting load off pin so I could slide permanent bolt and nut into place while pushing temp rod out at same time. I cut a thick washer that I could insert between spring cap and hood flange

after inserting spacer/washer I pushed down on hood which released tension on temp pin and was able to slide permanent bolt into hole.