Removing the hood

[Stevehose]

As suggested by @HB Chris I am going to remove the hood via the brackets behind the lights. Today I drilled a pilot hole into each hinge so that I can put a 1/8" drill bit in them in order to align them perfectly upon reinstallation (hat tip to @jjs2800cs for this idea). My question is, how heavy is the hood - can 2 people lift while a third does the bolts? And do I need to do anything about the torsion bar before lift off and can I keep that in place, just in the extended position?

 

[jjs2800cs]

Steve

When I removed mine, seems like a generation ago, I think we looped two ropes around the latches that are at the back of the hood up and over the rafters in my garage. I did have some help in doing so. So we tensioned the ropes with the hood obviously full opened, disconnected the torsion bars etc, disconnected the hinges and slowly pulled up on each rope acting like a pulley, clearing the car Then we pushed car back away from the hood (car was not on my lift) and lowered the hood and carried it off for storage. As we discussed we unbolted the hood and left the hinges on the car. We also put lots of carpet and padding around the front fenders etc.

jjs2800cs

 

[Bmachine]

When I removed mine, I drilled 2 small alignment holes through each hinge into the body work for later alignment and then did it with just 2 people no problem

 

[Dick Steinkamp]

Prop up the hood with a stick and remove the bolts from the torsion bar support on the inner fenders. Remove the 2 top bolts from the hinges and loosen the bottom one. The hood will stay in position. One guy on each side to lift the hood off that bottom bolt on each hinge. I think one pilot hole in each hinge should keep things in alignment during reassembly.

 

[autokunst]

Two people should be plenty to wrangle the hood. I managed to hoist my hood up on the wall for storage myself. I wouldn't recommend the solo operation. I was on the edge of dropping it during that entire operation. I will definitely get help when I need to pull it back off the wall.

 

[Stevehose]

Perfect, thanks

 

[bavbob]

Please let us know when you re-install, how well the drilled hole alignment method works. I marked the hell out of mine before removal, no drilling and it failed miserably. I used the rope method with another person (my 115lb wife) and it worked well, hood does not weigh very much. Just sorry you have to go through all of this.

 

[jjs2800cs]

Please let us know when you re-install, how well the drilled hole alignment method works. I marked the hell out of mine before removal, no drilling and it failed miserably. I used the rope method with another person (my 115lb wife) and it worked well, hood does not weigh very much. Just sorry you have to go through all of this.

I drilled two holes in each of the door hinges prior to removing. We just recenlty reinstalled the doors aligning them with 1/8" drills and they are just like they were never removed. We did the same with hood and trunk, but have yet to be installed. It worked for us, but of course we are drilling holes in our coupes., ouch.

But at least the car is now a bit lighter!

jjs2800cs

 

[Bert Poliakoff]

One hole should do it. One of the best body men in PHX told me about this. Everything lined back up when we hung the doors and and maybe needed the tiniest bit of fiddling with

 

[m5bb]

IIRC you can prop the hood up, then loosen the bolts. Then 2 people can easily lift it up and out to the front.
So you only need 2 people.
Good luck!
Gary

 

[BarneyT]

The danger I found when we removed the hood was it wanted to slide forward as the bolts are loosened, I had foam pads between body and hood at front corners… it really takes three people one person to remove the bolts/nuts and two people to hold the hood…

 

[m5bb]

The danger I found when we removed the hood was it wanted to slide forward as the bolts are loosened, I had foam pads between body and hood at front corners… it really takes three people one person to remove the bolts/nuts and two people to hold the hood…

The key is to not remove the bolts. The mounts are slotted so they just slide up when the bolts are loose.

 

[sfdon]

20 years… no hoods removed for engine installs or removal.
Complete waste of time and possibility of thousands in paint damage.
The key is to remove the clutch, flywheel and damper.
Remove the front passenger wheel. In with the cherry picker on right side.
Done. The hood has nothing to do with the job.