'52 F1 hood

[WRHorn9]

Hello:
I am early in making my '52 F1 into my "fun" vehicle.
I am curious if ALL '48-'52 F1s hood opens like the one I have.
The front of the hood opens just over 23". But to work on it It's like I'm crawling into the engine bay. I'm 5'-11" so not too tall. Keep hitting my neck or head on the hood backing out. I've seen a few picks that look like the hood opens much wider. There are the hood hinge brackets and the spring loaded support arms that operate when you open the hood.
Is this typical?

 

[petehoovie]

Hello:
I am early in making my '52 F1 into my "fun" vehicle.
I am curious if ALL '48-'52 F1s hood opens like the one I have.
The front of the hood opens just over 23". But to work on it It's like I'm crawling into the engine bay. I'm 5'-11" so not too tall. Keep hitting my neck or head on the hood backing out. I've seen a few picks that look like the hood opens much wider. There are the hood hinge brackets and the spring loaded support arms that operate when you open the hood.
Is this typical?

 

[52flthed]

Im also 5'11" and own the same truck. Although I dont do a ton of work on mine I do find even routine cleaning and maintenance difficult to access in this truck. From your pics looks about right but i can measure it at some point if someone else doesnt already do that. But my mechanic whose a bit shorter than I am uses a trick that I find useful which is he used these stagehand black platform boxes that are about 7-8 inches high to give himself enough height and reach over to be able to work on top of and into the engine bay. They are wide and stable so in effect they give you some work around the enormous front fenders that always seem to be pushing you away.

 

[pistonbroke]

On my buddies 51 we used a prop stick to hold it up to the max it would open. This gave us a few more inches and made a huge difference. Tim

 

[leon bee]

Yeah, I thought a stick was routine.

 

[WRHorn9]

After examining what limited the hood opening I located the stop tab within the Spring Assist hinge on each side stopped the hood from opening further. After propping the hood open with a stick - took the pressure off the spring assists and removed them both. Using a strong turnbuckle and bolts attached to the open ends of the hinge I closed the hinge a little bit so I could access the stop tab. Using a Dremel I notched the tabs on both hinges about 1/8". After re-installation the hood opened almost 28" at the front. Before it only opened about 23-1/2". 1/8" relief gained 4-1/2" opening more.

In hinge photo note RED arrow pointing at stop tab where I notched it.

 

[petehoovie]

After examining what limited the hood opening I located the stop tab within the Spring Assist hinge on each side stopped the hood from opening further. After propping the hood open with a stick - took the pressure off the spring assists and removed them both. Using a strong turnbuckle and bolts attached to the open ends of the hinge I closed the hinge a little bit so I could access the stop tab. Using a Dremel I notched the tabs on both hinges about 1/8". After re-installation the hood opened almost 28" at the front. Before it only opened about 23-1/2". 1/8" relief gained 4-1/2" opening more.

In hinge photo note RED arrow pointing at stop tab where I notched it.

 

[Scotty's 52 F3]

Thanks for posting your fix. And to Pete for the enlargement. I'll have to look into this on my 52.

 

[tubman]

I find it puzzling why Ford decided to put hefty hood assist springs on their pickup trucks, but not their passenger cars.

 

[WRHorn9]

tubman: I wonder if the spring assist hinges from the trucks would adapt to the cars?

by the way:
1)when doing a Quick Reply, how do you refer to another user with the bold link?
2) I've seen many replies on threads where users only post "bump". What does that mean?