Hinge Smooth

A typical trunk lid hinge, sure it gets the job done but it is unsightly on a Hot Rod project. As seen the shape in the side stops short and looks awkward.

We start with a piece of 1/4 inch stainless wire to weld on and finish out the shape for a nice look.

We welded the wire and ground her smooth, a bit of fill and sand work and she will look nice once painted.

The open side will require much more work.

We install the hinge to check for alignment. When you weld and heat a fragile part like a hinge you need to go very slow, tack weld then air cool, tack and cool so that it does not affect the shape and end up affecting the fit of your trunk lid. Note, check out the alignment pins we are inserting after drilling through the hinge in to the panel below it. When you build a car a panel will come on and off a car many times so this saves much time.

In this step we took 3/4 thin wall tubing and centered it around the bolts, then tack welded them to the hinge. We then angle sliced them from the high to the low side of the hinge.

We removed the hinge and tape the angle so we can get a template.

We will do it in two sections. As seen we razor blade the tape on the very outer edge.

We then transfer the template to a piece of metal and trace it out. Then we cut it out for an exact fit.

Pre fit and a little hand tweak and it is ready for welding. We simply did the same taping on the far end and cut out that piece then welded it up and grind.

As seen it came out very nice, looks awesome and is actually a stronger part now