Have you ever had your bonnet safety hooks apart?
I hadn't disassembled mine before painting so I had to do it afterward. I
removed them by removing the cotter pins and pushing out the clevis pins. The
spring releases and the hook, spring and plain bushing pop out under the force
of the spring being released.
I didn't spend a lot of time studying the arrangement of parts before removing
them in this way. That was the first mistake. I then cleaned everything and
re-plated the springs and clevis pins and re-painted the hooks. It wasn't too
easy masking off and protecting the almost finished car to isolate the support
brackets on the bonnet so they could be cleaned, sanded, primed and painted
but it had to be done. I let the paint cure for a day - not long enough - and
went about reinstalling the hooks. This is when the "fun" began.
Not remembering how these things went together now took its toll. After
several attempts, I got wise and looked in the parts list which shows the
correct orientation of the spring so I thought I was on the way "home". No
such luck. I tried to push the hook assembly, assembled with bush & spring,
less the clevis pin, against the force of the spring to align the spring &
bushing with the holes in the bracket on the bonnet so the clevis pin can be
run from the front side of the bracket to the back. Can't be done, at least
by me.
Next, the light bulb went on (always a bad sign) and I decided I would come up
with a way the "neutralize" the spring so I wouldn't be fighting it to get the
assembly into alignment with the holes. I spent a number of hours inventing
(reinventing the wheel really) devices that would not interfere with the
insertion of the parts and that would compress and hold the spring so all I
would have to do was to slip it in place, send the clevis pin home and stick
in the cotter pin. Done! Finito!
Well, that's not how it worked out. In desperation I gave up these marvellous
inventions I had worked so diligently on - none of which worked - and took
another look at the "manual method". This time the light really went on and I
slid the hooked ends of the spring between the faces of the bonnet bracket,
hence no spring pressure to fight against, and the holes lined up with
relative ease. In went the clevis pin to hold all in place while I next
forced the hooks of the springs toward the engine side with a punch and small
ball peen hammer until they snapped over the edge of the bracket putting the
spring into its loaded state. All that is left now is to try to remedy all
the paint damage done in the process of the "doing method" versus the
"thinking method" although the thinking method does a fair amount of damage
all by itself.
Richard Bittmann BJ7 Tacoma
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