Just reminding all the other folks who are unfortunate enough to live in cold weather places(like me) and plan on storing their cars for winter... Don't forget to lube up your hood hinges before storing the car, particularly if it's being stored outside.

Just thought I'd mention it because a lot of people have been having issues with hood hinges freezing up on them this year(resulting in bent hinges, scratched paint, and damaged body panels), and this is probably going to be about the time where a lot of people with '03 to '05 Coupes will start having that problem if they don't take preventative measures against this unfortunate "defect".

Mine started to seize up on me this summer, but I caught it before it got bad enough to do any real damage.

Your best bet for lubing them effectively is to take 2 of those little straws that come with a can of white lithium grease, and join them together with a flexible piece of hose in the middle. The flexible piece of hose will act as a bendable joint between the 2 straws, allowing you to then shoot grease around corners and into the hinges... since they are hard to get at due to the design of the hood and fenders. You should use white lithium grease as the lube of choice for this application.

Sleep well, sweet G's!

 

Thank god for my heated garage.

 

why would u store it outside?... might as well drive it lol

 

I don't have a garage... so I have no choice. If you saw the damage that is done to a car by driving it out here in the winter as a result of snow, potholes, road salt, and other cars slinging winter ice and broken chunks of the road at your car as you drive behind them... you'd want to store yours too.

I store it to keep it in good shape and rust free(from road salt). Plus... low RWD cars with a healthy serving of power on tap suck terribly in the snow. Toyota Tacoma 4x4 FTW! I'd rather drive my truck in the winter anyways than spend money on another set of rims and tires while subjecting the G to the rigors of New England winters.

 

...ur right.. sounds HORRIBLE up there.. lol

 

Happened to me before on my 04, scratched the coner on my passenger side. Took me a good 1/2 an hour of excercise lifting up and down the hood with greese =)

 

good tip!

 

same here on my 03 i had to lift it up and down for like 15 min to get it back to place

 

Excellent tip, whether storing warm or cold, it can dry out and cause you problems. Even if you're not storing, lube it periodically.

 

Just wondering bro, can we get a pic of that setup you mentioned in your OP?

BTW lol, probably a stupid question, but can you store it in those Self-Storage places? That's what I would do, they have a guarded one with cameras by me.

 

This is when I'm happy I live in the middle of the desert, I can wear shorts and drive my G all year long

 

Are you referring to the 2 straws joined together by the flexible joint?

 

I'm pretty sure he was

 

Here is some more detail and some pics of the simple "tool" that I threw together to make it possible for me to easily lube up the hard-to-get-to hinges on our cars with White Lithium Grease. All I did was take 2 of those little straws that come with various spray-can type lubricants and joined them together with about a 3/4" to 1" section of flexible rubber hose. You'll need the diameter of the hose to be a very tight fit around the straws in order to ensure a tight seal on each end of the hose/straw. What I did was use a hose that was extremely tight and then stretched each end out by jamming a big nail into the end of it just prior to putting the straw in so that when I pulled the nail out the rubber would be stretched out enough for me to get the end of the straw in without damaging the straw and then the rubber would tighten back up and firmly seal onto the end of the straw after the straw was put in.
It worked out exactly as planned. At the bottom of this post are some poor-quality pictures to help out anyone who wants to do the same thing.

I can't emphasize enough, the importance of keeping up with the hinge lubrication maintenance on the hoods of our cars.




If you're already at the point where your hinges are actually already stuck or binding, you may have to use this tool to first spray some PB-Blaster into your hinges just to free it up before you go ahead and spray the White Lithium on them. For those of you who don't know what PB-Blaster is... it's a very good penetrating oil that is intended to break rust and free up frozen metal parts.
ONLY DO THESE PB-BLASTER STEPS IF YOUR HINGES ARE ALREADY BINDING OR COMPLETELY STUCK... as it's generally not recomended to mix penetrating oil with other greases if you can avoid it. If you're accurate with your grease spraying and cut one of the straws down to a short length, you might even be able to lube the hinges up with the PB-Blaster while the hood is closed, in order to initially free it.
After spraying the hinges down with the PB-Blater, allow it to soak into the hinges for a good 10 minutes.
Once you get the hood open, you'll want to then open and close it a whole bunch of times while the PB-Blaster is on the hinges so that any rust in the hinges gets worked out.
Then blast your hinges with compressed air to try to blow out any remaining PB-Blaster from the hinges so that they are as clean as possible for the next step, and wipe the whole area down with a rag to clean up the PB-Blaster which will now be all over the place(Or you can prepare and do what I did, which is to cover everything with rags first so no lubricants get on the rest of the car.. mainly the windshield, the black plastic windhsield wiper/vent housing/trim, and A-Pillars).
Next, remove your flexible spray "tool" from the PB-Blaster can flick it a few times to get any remaining PB-Blaster out of it, and then put it on the can of White Lithium grease, and spray a ton of white lithium grease on your hinges as well as on the hood latch(you should clean the hood latch first with some rags before spraying it). Make sure that when you spray the hinges, you try to hit them from all different angles and primarily focus on spraying it from the top so that the grease will drip down into the moving part of the hinge itself.
Open and close the hood a whole bunch of times to make sure the stuff is worked into the hinges and wipe away any excess with a rag.


If your hood hinges aren't already sticking, just use the white lithium grease on them and don't use any PB-Blaster at all(skip any step that mentioned PB-Blaster).


Hope this helps!