hood springs measurements

[Mark Norris]

thank you for that and i did send the guy on ebay a message

can you get me the over all length of the springs and the lengths of the hooks from the coils?

Thank you very much for the help!

Hi Andy - two points

1) its very difficult to accurately measure the spring overall length on the car because at all hood positions its expanded under tension and also the hook ends are not readily accessible. I strongly suggest the best plan would be to send Holger (Forum name Egenolf) a private message via the Forum and ask him if he has a technical drawing of the replica hood springs which he had made in Germany and that should give you everything you need, more info here;

https://www.markiiforum.com/showthre...ht=hood+spring

... and/or purchase the used springs from the vendor on Ebay (I can't imagine he'll want much for them).

2) Note Barry's suggestion to check the wear on the holes where the hood spring hooks attach into the hinges. These are pantograph hinges meaning they allow the rear of the hood to both swing up and down and raise vertically up and down as the hood is opened and closed. Any slop in the pivot points or spring holes will respectively fail to allow the rear of the hood to drop far enough to align with the front windscreen scuttle and will not allow the hood to stay up properly. You can rotate the hinge slightly on its mount bolts to compensate (front of the hinge upward, rear of the spring downward) if its only minor wear but beyond that its a case of rebuilding the hinges by a specialist.

Even with good hinges I still always use a temporary hood prop to relieve the stress on the hood skin behind the hinges, I'm afraid the whole hood hinge and spring arrangement on the Mkii is something of a weak point in the design. I suspect the hood is larger and heavier than most other designs Ford had at the time and like any new car it was rushed a bit in certain areas (I doubt anyone wanted to spend a lot of time on the hood hinges when there are other more interesting/visible parts of the new body to get right).