The car is officially off to paint now. I have covered some ground since last posting that I thought I would cover in one big post here:
Hood Latch Install
As you will see in the photos below, the hood latch catch sticks out pretty far from under the body. These steel "L" brackets provide a lot of realestate for the "duck foot" latch to catch to. I decided to modify the brackets in two ways:
1.) Match the contour of the engine bay opening by triming the bracket to match
2.) Create a recess in the actual bracket face so the "duck foot" latch will "settle in" to a notch
I used a dremel tool to achieve these two modifications. I used a cut off wheel to get the countour for the engine bay then used a stone grinding wheel to get a more accurate curve. For the recess, I used a few different stone grinding wheels to get the right depth. I used the duck foot to test and retest to see if I got the right. I beveled the edges for asthetics (Although no one will see it but I know it is there). I used POR 15 to seal up my work.
Install the catches were a pain on the driver's side. I actually had to take the body partially off so I could access the bolts. What made it difficult was the wiring harness, pedal assembly and steering column. All this stuff made for a tight fit.
For the actual latch to go through the hood, I had to enlarge the underside openings so that the duck foot slide almost inside. This provided enough adjustment space to compensate for the seals that will be put in place between the engine bay opening and the hood.
2 Week Progress
We made a surprise visit on Rick at the two week mark. Here is the progress; again...look how excited Gryphon is...:
Hood Latch Install
As you will see in the photos below, the hood latch catch sticks out pretty far from under the body. These steel "L" brackets provide a lot of realestate for the "duck foot" latch to catch to. I decided to modify the brackets in two ways:
1.) Match the contour of the engine bay opening by triming the bracket to match
2.) Create a recess in the actual bracket face so the "duck foot" latch will "settle in" to a notch
I used a dremel tool to achieve these two modifications. I used a cut off wheel to get the countour for the engine bay then used a stone grinding wheel to get a more accurate curve. For the recess, I used a few different stone grinding wheels to get the right depth. I used the duck foot to test and retest to see if I got the right. I beveled the edges for asthetics (Although no one will see it but I know it is there). I used POR 15 to seal up my work.
Install the catches were a pain on the driver's side. I actually had to take the body partially off so I could access the bolts. What made it difficult was the wiring harness, pedal assembly and steering column. All this stuff made for a tight fit.
For the actual latch to go through the hood, I had to enlarge the underside openings so that the duck foot slide almost inside. This provided enough adjustment space to compensate for the seals that will be put in place between the engine bay opening and the hood.
Off to paint!
The car has been off to paint for about 4 weeks now. It was picked up and dropped off at Prime Collision where Rick will be doing his handy work. Here are pics of this glorious day. Note how excited my son Gryphon is....
We made a surprise visit on Rick at the two week mark. Here is the progress; again...look how excited Gryphon is...:
posted by Khan Smith at 7:54 AM
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