Hood Hinge DIY
 

Hi,
I've been on this forum for a while but this is my first thread. I was in an accident not too long ago and unfortunately my hood hinges bent. I bought them for 50 bucks from a local dealership but they wanted 400 to install them. So I decided to try myself and since I couldn't find a DIY i decided to make one myself. It took me about 3 hours to do mostly because I was making it up as I went. You do not need to remove the entire fender to do this. Don't let the dealership tell you its necessary.

To start off you'll need a phillips head and a flat head screw driver. A socket wrench with 10 mm and 12 mm sockets. And a friend to help take the hood off. Its bulky.

Steps
1. Remove the bumper. Take out all the plastic tabs with the flat head screw driver and the screws with the 10mm socket. Its not too hard to do and there is no need to jack the car up. To get the ones in the wheel well you'll have to turn the wheel and peel back the wheel well lining.

2. After the bumper is off I took out the headlights. This isn't actually necessary but it gives you more room and i'm replacing mine with the projector ones anyways.

3. Now take the hood off the hinges. There are four bolts and they require the 12 mm socket. This is where the friend holds the hood so it doesn't fall on the car.

4. Next take out the plastic tabs that hold on the battery cover and remove this.

5.Along the sides of the fender are 2 12mm bolts and a few 10 mm.
http://i46.tinypic.com/jq56a9.jpg

6. After all bolts are removed you can pull the fender out a little. Don't worry about bending it, it can take some abuse.

7. Undo the three 12 mm bolts that hold the hind to the car. you'll have to keep pulling the fender back while doing this. Its tight but possible to do.

8. This is the hinge removed.
http://i46.tinypic.com/311pd8x.jpg

9. After this just put in the new hinge and bolt everything back up and put the hood back on. Make sure its aligned right though.

I hope this helps anyone since i know these hinges suck. Thanks davidxu for helping with those pictures.

Steve.

pictures not working

hmm how do i get them to show? I did the [IMG][/IMG] thing using photobucket.

[IMG][/IMG] only works for pictures. which means internet addresses ending in .jpg

imageshack and photobucket has been getting worse and worse. i used tinypic.com now.

reuploaded using tinypic. You can quote my post and you can get the addresses. edit them in the OP. :thewave:

http://i46.tinypic.com/jq56a9.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/311pd8x.jpg

ahh thanks for the help. the pictures are fixed now.

i have a question regarding the hood removal.
I am trying to reinstall my oem hood and i noticed that the bolt is actually built into the hood and i need the right size nuts to tighten it down. Can you tell me what size bolt is required? M12?

thsnk

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I had to give kudos where appropriate. I annihilated a deer on my way home from work the other night on the highway, and the only damage to the topside of the car was a bent hood hinge. There simply aren't words to describe how lucky I am. That aside, here's a bit more on the procedure...

Since I was replacing one hinge, I decided to do both while I had the hood off.
First, I removed the battery cover and most of the plastic trim around the lower edge of the windshield. Driver's side wasn't really necessary, since I don't have a cover for the brake booster area.

I completely took off the hood by removing the four nuts that hold it to the hinges.
I didn't have to turn the wheels, or even touch the bottom side of the car at all. This was hellishly easy to do.
I removed the four 10mm bolts from the top of the fender, and the 12mm bolts that hold the fender through the front core support. Don't forget to remove the 10mm bolt holding the fender behind the door/fender seam.
Once I removed those bolts, I had enough play in the fender to pull it back and unbolt the hood hinges.
It was seriously that easy.

Any sort of body work has been the bane of my car-guy existence, and this was too easy to describe. Had I not been drinking, googling, smoking, and tossing the ball for my dog between steps, I'd have had this done in less than an hour.

Thanks polansst for the write-up!

P.S. the most difficult part is lining the hood back up with the fenders, and that wasn't all that bad.