There’s lots of new powdercoated items as well as painted things under the hood of this 1987 Buick Grand National.
But there’s also a lot of original OEM issued parts that have factory paint on them too.
And some of them need to be refreshed since they’re 35+ years old.
This is part of our “Buick Grand National Engine Bay Cleanup series.”
(a multi-part series we’re doing for assorted things under the hood)
(eventually the entire thing will look as pretty as the rest of the Turbo Buick does)
Today’s project is the hood pop up spring.
It’s old and rusting.
It really sticks out since we put on the new upper radiator cover.
A quick removal and rattle can paint job on it (glossy black) should do it.
[perhaps in the future, we will get this item done in powdercoat with a few other select things, but it’s good enough for now]
The entire task took less than 15 minutes (not counting dry time for the paint).
You’ll notice our spring is located on the core support, not attached to the hood like the stock Buick Regal versions have.
We have a (Hartline) fiberglass hood on this Gbody Regal, and there’s no provisions on it for a spring.
The easy solution to keeping one on the car, was to just place it in the half moon shaped slot next to the top radiator plate.
You just twist one end of the spring into it and it holds itself in place.
It works.
.
[ we didn’t even originally cut the spring down,
or change it out,
as others have suggested,
as to what to do when using a FG hood.
It seems to work just fine as it is ]
[ if you’re wondering,
what others said to use:
Hood Pop Up Spring #55176732AD,
from a Jeep Wrangler,
it’s shown in the pic to the right.
That could be a good option for some ]
.
We already had some sandpaper laying around, and a can of paint too.
Remove spring, a quick sand job, spray it, let it dry, reattach to Turbo Regal, done.
Cost? Nothing, just a quarter of an hour of our time.
Looks much better now.
Off to the next project…
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