e-body trunk hinges

[RacerX]

I have a post in "parts wanted" looking for trunk hinge support brackets for my '71 cuda.

And, as is usually the case this became more complicated than it should be...

Turns out there are two styles of trunk hinge and matching support bracket.

There is one with a "stair step" pattern like the one in my pictures below, and there is
one with a "channel" (down, flat, back up) pattern.   

I can find no indications of which cars got which style and when.   My '70 Challenger has the "channel" style,
and I've looked at pictures of e-body trunks and some '71 'cudas had the channel style also, so 

There are semi-reasonably priced repops of the hinge and the support, but take a guess at which style they are   

Even the cut-out OEM hinge assemblies I see popping up on ebay are of the channel style.

I would prefer to not change the hinges themselves as there is nothing wrong with them, but it would appear that is
the only option unless someone has the seemingly rare style of support bracket used in my car...   

[jimynick]

If your quest for hinges doesn't work out, what about some glazing putty, seam sealer and elbow grease on the old ones? AND, retain your originality for those enamoured of such. 

[BFM_Cuda]

Huh, never realized there were 2 different styles...

I have a pair of the other style available, with the upper pieces. Your right hand upper appears to be rusty where the panels overlap.
I was going to comment on your wanted post, but I didn't see it anymore and thought you had found a set.

[RacerX]

Huh, never realized there were 2 different styles...

I have a pair of the other style available, with the upper pieces. Your right hand upper appears to be rusty where the panels overlap.
I was going to comment on your wanted post, but I didn't see it anymore and thought you had found a set.

Yea I never imagined there were two different styles either...   what possible reason would Chrysler have for doing
that with it's seemingly random application?     

That one hinge has some pitting, but no holes in it.   My initial reaction was to re-use that part to simplify the search.

But if you have a decent complete set available I'd be interested.   I need to remove the hinges completely anyway as I am
replacing the wheelhouses and the dutchman panel, so might as well put back decent OEM parts instead of repop   

[Fastmark]

I have a 70 parts car that I still have not picked up yet. I need to go out there and pick up my sewer machine from him. I'll take a picture and see what it looks like.

[RacerX]

I have a 70 parts car that I still have not picked up yet. I need to go out there and pick up my sewer machine from him. I'll take a picture and see what it looks like.

Did you have a chance to take a look?

[RacerX]

Still looking for these...

After doing additional research it seems that for some reason the trunk hinge
supports are different between cuda and challenger. 

This "stair step" style support is only found in cuda.   The other style "channel"
is challenger.

I mentioned above that I had seen pictures of cuda trunks with the "channel" style
but I have looked around again and every cuda trunk picture I can find has the
"stair step" style as in my cuda.     So maybe I did not see that after all...

My theory here is the upper support is different between the two car lines due to
the difference in the dutchman panels.   Maybe Chrysler made the shape different
in order to easily distinguish between them in the factory which would mean the
lower support has to be different also.


Further evidence:

In the Chrysler parts catalog the part numbers are different for challenger and cuda.

The repop hinge support set ("channel" style) that is currently available is usually listed
as being only for Challenger.

AMD just listed the lower support in the "stair step" style, and show the fitment as cuda
only.   The picture is from the AMD website...


So it would seem that I can only use the pieces from a barracuda.    My upper supports are
quite rusty also so I would ideally need the whole set.

Can anyone help?