1943 Dodge WC51 Hood and Transfer Case Linkage Repairs

There's a central hinge on the hood of this truck. Each side can open up to work on that side of the engine bay. Problem is, the hinge pivot on the back edge of the hood had broken off at some point and the hood halves no longer stay propped up. It's no wonder the pivot broke, as it's just the end of the hinge sheet metal that had been formed into a round peg. Here's a photo of the front hinge pivot for context.

When the hood sides are propped up, a lot of force is placed on the rear pivot, so it just decided to break off sometime in the distant past. Below shows the remains.

Here's my solution. I welded in a piece of round stock about the same diameter of the missing pivot.

Now that the hood hinge ends are both functional again, I had to take off the front hinge pivot clip that captures the front hood pivot. There were two mismatched screws. Go figure. So I thought I'd make one to match what appeared to be an original flat countersunk screw. The two screws also had nuts on the backsides, and by looking online, there should have been a backing plate with two threaded holes in it to accept the two screws, so I made one of those also.

I found a hex head bolt with the same thread pitch as the original and turned down a countersunk feature.

Below is the backing plate with two threaded holes. It will go under the radiator cowl to accept the two screws holding the hood's front hinge pivot clip.

Getting the hood bolted down is a bit of a challenge. Shown below are the hinge pivot clips and backing plates used at each end of the hood hinge (image courtesy Midwest Military).

As mentioned previously, I removed the front hinge pivot clip to install the hood. The hood is then placed on the truck with the rear pivot pin inserted into the rear hinge pivot clip, then the front hinge pivot clip is installed with the two screws. In order to get the screws in, each side of the hood has to be held vertical so each screw can be threaded in. I dropped the new screw I had just made down into the engine compartment. It didn't hit the ground, so it was still lodged somewhere in the engine compartment. I searched, searched, then searched some more for a good 30 minutes (I could have made another one quicker). I was ready to give up and make another screw but then just decided to make one last search. I found the screw in the fan shroud, so now the hood is all bolted down and intact once again.

There was a leaking bypass hose on the engine so I decided to replace that before going too much further. It had some oldy-moldy wire clamps on it that might actually be original to the truck. I decided to try and save them, which I was ultimately successful in doing after applying some propane torch heat sparingly. The hose just crumbled apart into little bits so it was very ancient. I got the new hose installed and thought it would be a good time to drive the truck outside a little. I got going on the lawn and up the hill.

Almost to the top of the hill and wouldn't you know, the right rear tire started slipping. Not a problem. I locked the front hubs and put it into 4WD. Worked like a charm. Then I go to shift out of 4WD. It didn't go. Then the lever got all floppy, like something broke. Great. Back into the garage after I unlocked the front hubs.

Below is the shift rod for 4WD. It looks pretty normal.

But not so fast. It had been welded up long ago and whoever did it just put a real light bead around the outside. It had no penetration into the base metal and had been cracked for some time, and there was very little holding things together.

I ground the ends so the weld could get good penetration.

That should hold a lot better than the previous repair.