[Terry M. Hunt]

I removed the trunk lid and tension rods before my car was painted. Now in the process of reassembling the car. Current project is refinishing the trunk compartment. While taping things out to do this I noticed the body color paint on both hinge arms was scraped up. Moving the hinge arms up and down I can feel a point where they bind. If I look closely at the vertical flange of the hinge assembly I can see the place where the inside surface of the hinge arm makes contact. Photo A shows how close the gap is between the hinge arm and the vertical flange of the hinge assembly on the passenger side. Driver side is just as bad. Photo B shows this same gap on the driver side of my 64 GTO. You can see that it is much wider. Photo C shows the inner surface of the vertical flange of the hinge assembly on the 66. There is a ridge that is bead rolled into this flange that protrudes a little on the inside of the flange. It is this raised surface that the hinge arms are scraping against as I move them up and down. Photo D shows this damage on the hinge arm paint. I’ve tried a couple of ways to get the vertical flange to move/flex, etc. toward the center of the car to eliminate this area of interference, but I haven’t been able to move the flange, and I definitely don’t want to deform or damage anything on these structures by applying too much force, etc. I can imagine that getting the hinge assemblies out of line could lead to a disaster getting the trunk lid to ever fit right or seal. Is it possible that having the tension rods back in place could cure this? I know they were a aPIA to remove so I’m sure reinstalling them will be no different. I’ve never run into this on any of my other cars. With the tension rods out and the trunk lid removed the hinge arms would move freely with no interference. Would love to hear any theories you guys have on this.