Luke Czaplinski of Eddie Motorsports handled the hood hinge swap in less than two hours, which included dealing with Editor Brennan!
The Tri-Five Chevy is to the post-’48 crowd what the ’32 Ford is to the pre-’49 crowd—an iconic car. The designs of both are timeless and their decades-long popularity has proven their staying power.
The hinges come in two models to cover Tri-Five applications: ’55-56 and ’57.
On a visit to Eddie Motorsports (Rancho Cucamonga, California) we had the opportunity to follow along as a ’55 Chevy was getting a hood hinge makeover. All of us who have rumbled around under the hood of an old car of any year, make, and model understand fitting modern components can oftentimes be a chore—if not a downright pain in the backside.
Not so with the Eddie Motorsports Tri-Five Chevy hood hinges. This truly is an “after dinner” exercise. The billet hood hinges are CNC machined and designed for ’55-56 (PN EMS149-30) and ’57 (PN EMS149-31) models, available in either machined, polished, or colored finishes. The 6061-T6 billet aluminum utilizes sealed bearings for smooth and long-lasting operation. The “secret” to the hinges over stock springs are the stainless steel gas struts (accompanied by mounting hardware). Trunk hinges are also available.
In our efforts to update our ’55 we visited Eddie Motorsports’ offices and got to work with Luke Czaplinski who handled the swap in less than two hours. We would recommend when the time comes to remove and replace the hood, bribing one of your strong-arm hot rod buddies to come around will make hood R&R go that much simpler. In our particular application we found a firewall brace (that apparently isn’t on all Tri-Fives produced) that needed a bit of grinding to clear the gas strut but that was accomplished in minutes. Another caveat on the ’55 is the factory (OEM) battery location may (not always) require modification from its stock position.
The hinges come in two models to cover Tri-Five applications: ’55-56 and ’57.
