Well...the springs were intended to be there for a couple of reasons. I don't know about the 1954 but if you'll work with adjusting the hinges you can get the hood to sit correctly in the previous years. I realize you don't want advice on adjusting but doing that can be funny. You may have to move the hinges in ways you don't expect to get the hood to pull down on the anti-squeak strip and stay put. On one side of mine I had to loosen all 3 bolts, push the hinge toward the cab on the top part and pull out at the bottom part on one side. It wasn't fun by myself but once I did that, all was Jake. The other side wasn't a problem. Good luck!
