I have a lightweight hood on my 64 Savoy. I have a set of lightweight springs but they don't have enough pressure to keep hood open has anyone installed prop rods in place of the light weight springs?

I don't have a 64, nor a light weight hood, but I deal with a lot of 40s & 50s Mopars and seem to always be installing hood prop rods.

Usually, the prop rod is attached to the inner fender and will swing up to a place on the hood for support that won't easily move should it get bumped. Attaching to the fender lip or inner fender is pretty simple, a small piece of angle or flat stock bolted to the fender with (or without) a second bolt hole, and an eye hook (or flat washer) on the fender end of the prop rod. You insert a bolt through the bracket and through the prop rod, and install a flat washer and a lock nut. I usually mount the bolted end of the prop rod near the radiator support, and lay the rod along the fender edge, then add a catch onto the inner fender to hold the loose end of the prop rod when its not in use, to keep it out of trouble. Usually a 1/4" diameter to a 3/8" diameter rod is plenty strong enough to do the job, the 90s Dakotas used a 5/16" diameter rod that was almost 4' long to support that rather large steel hood.

The light weight hood could be the problem. On a steel hood, I often drill a hole in the inner structure for the prop rod to fit into (about a 1/2" deep) and add a stop washer on the prop at the proper location. A 90 degree bend at the end of the prop rod would also work at the hood, but it takes more effort to be sure the 90 degree bend doesn't easily move if bumped. With the light weight hood, your going to need to find a location to support the end of the prop rod that won't damage the outer hood surface, will be strong enough to keep the prop rod in position so it doesn't slide, and will support the hood.

If you want, I can take pictures of the hood prop rod on my 48 Plymouth coupe. Gene

I have a standard weight glass hinged hood on my Dart and use a fiberglass cattle stick. It lays in front of the radiator support on the latch support, haven’t lost it in almost 15 years.

Something like this, you can buy different lengths.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/us-whip-45-in-sorting-pole-45cow

I used a cut off broom handle to hold the lightweight racing fibreglass hood open on my old pump gas Duster.
I could have went to a local junkyard and got a steel hood prop made to hold open stock steel hoods but I wanted to make the local street racers think I was really cheap

I used an old Toyota Land Cruiser prop rod on a Duster 'glass hood, worked fine & a hole for the base was already there.
Used a fender bolt to mount a clip for it to rest in when not in use.
Stock hinges, no springs.

Probably more clever to use a pair of hydraulic supports, so ya don't bump into the strut, but wasn't an issue.

That"s what i was thinking using the rod from the modern challenger/charger hood, just need to figure out the mounting locations. Thanks for the ideas.

When I built my 57 Plymouth I had a problem with weak hood hinges. That’s a lot of steel to come slamming down (anybody remember the opening scene from Christine ).

My solution was to drill a 1/4" hole thru the hinges and used a couple of quick release pins to secure the hood open. Unless you’re looking for them they are pretty unnoticeable.

On a side note, somebody started reproducing new hood springs a few years ago so the pins just stay in the tool box now.


hinge pin by M Patterson, on Flickr


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I did similar for my E-body, but for quick and easy I have a 3/4" PVC pipe that goes from ground to hood.

Both of those mods look good just did not want to walk around with hardware either sitting in car or stashed in hinge area.
This is a race car loose things fly around in it so attaching rods directly to hinge is preferred. I need to look into a prop rod that acts like the existing hood springs. Thanks for the ideas.