Body/Trim: amazon boot lid springs

[swede]

Does anyone know the best way to re-attach the boot lid springs on a 131. I have refurbished the hinges and the springs are back in place but I don't know whether the springs should be attached at the hinge first and then the outer end or the other way round. Any suggestions please.

[agent_strangelove]

It's been a few years since I have done it but I think I fished the springs into the hinges and started the bolts in hinge to the body. I then could leverage the other hinge up into place and then get the bolts in. Start with the spring on the lesser tension setting and try to install that way. If you get the trunk (boot) lid on there and it doesn't stay up, you can kick the spring ends to the next setting... But be carefull kicking them to the next setting. There is a lot of force there and I have seen some really smashed fingers.

[swede]

The outer ends of each spring end in an 'L' shape with the corner of the L sitting in a bracket and the end of the L engages with the body with two locations depending on how much tension is required on the spring. To engage the spring I made a tool about 17 inches long from 1 inch square heavy guage steel tube. Near one end I drilled a hole through the tube just inside the wall of the tube and then cut a slot in the wall so that it would slip over the spring. I then elongated the hole by about 1/8 inch down inside the side wall so that as the tool acted on the spring the spring was slightly behind the side wall of the tube and would not slip off.

The tool worked well and allowed me to put the spring on the first setting. This was not enough to hold the lid open and attempts to get it on the second setting resulted in the spring coming out of the bracket at the corner of the L instead of moving to the second setting. My solution was to put a G clamp on the corner bracket to keep that part of the spring in place and all was well. For the first time since I bought the car I have a boot lid that stays open!

[Steve121]

does anyone have photos of the bootlid springs in place?

now I have some time on my hands I'm going around the Amazon fixing stuff, and the bootlid is one thing that has never worked well, ie never stayed up. The car was 'restored' by a PO a number of years ago, and quite a few things not put back right.

While the ends of the spring rods look to be in the correct place, where the long bits of the spring rods cross from side to side along the car's width, they look to be forced in travelling under 2 chassis reinforcements. is this correct? I'll try and get some photos of what I mean..