So in the continuance of my build, I came to something which I really didn't think would be a big deal. How to lift and support my fiberglass front clip.
I spent 2 weeks thinking about it and trying different ideas before settling on this.
I first thought to throw some gas struts on there. Seems simple enough, but it's not. How to mount, force and throw and huge considerations. I tried a couple different sizes and quickly found I needed quite a bit of throw to go the full swing (from closed to 100 degrees). I've alot more respect for the people engineering the struts on those giant liftgates out there. Plus, they need to assist in opening, hold it open, and not fight you on the way down. That's somewhat of a trick.
So I looked at the H2, it has a torsion spring in there at the hinge and requires you to pull on the center (they have handles on the hood). That doesn't work for me, our hoods are much much longer and flat, and mounting a handle in the middle of the hood would look really stupid. I think the H2 ones look stupid too. It has cable limiters to hard stop at 90degrees or so.
Anyway, another problem is once the clip is beyond 80 degrees or so, it really wants to roll over. While the struts could hold it, how to mount the struts to the underside so they wouldn't tear through would be a problem. The lower you mount the struts so they don't fight you to close the harder it becomes to hold the hood open from such a low position. So some cable limiters to the top edge are in order. Plus, at full open, that hood is really up there, most garages wouldn't take it.
So, after much consideration, I came to this solution:
I have a nice set of stainless gas struts custom ordered to my needs. There's no place to mount them anyway to get full swing, so I decided on a 2 stage effect.
The struts lift to 45 degrees or so. This puts the clip high enough to check oil, fluids, etc, but no so high where it's gonna hit stuff. I have push button t-handle disconnects to pop the struts loose on one end and I can push the clip to full open position then. This is easy because once at 45 degrees, 90% of the weight is on the hinges and you can use a couple of fingers to push it the rest of the way over.
I then have cable limiters, which are on retractable spools mounted underneath in the wiper train area.
The spring wound cable spools came with much to thin cable, so I restrung them with thicker cable for safety. I then had to make custom cable ends and such, I used spring loaded disconnects on the ends of the cable so I can disconnect them so they are not in the way and I can fully remove the front clip too. All cable and hardware are stainless steel. The are attached to the studs of the rubber hold down straps on the fender sides. This worked well because they go all the way through and I don't have to make any additional holes in the clip or worry about tearing if I just screwed into the underside.
Whew. Way more effort and money than I thought just to open and close the hood.
Struts assist and hold open at 45 degrees or so:
Struts & mounting
The cable spools (nice and hidden)
The Full open position. I can stand in front of the tire. Great access to everything here. That thing is skied!
T-Handle disconnects (w/ lanyard of course!)
The ends of my cable
So, the whole procedure goes like this:
1) Pull disconnect pins on H1 style brush gaurd, fold brush guard down.
2) Undo H2 style rubber side hold down straps
3) lift hood to 45 degree position.
4) If you want to full open, pull t-handle disconnects, push foward to cable limited hard stop position
The clip is fully removable, once past 60 degrees or so, it can slide off to the drivers side. It's kinda of feat to get it back on though, 2 people is a struggle. It's not the weight, it's light enough, it's just big and awkward to hold in the air, balance and try to line it back onto the hinge pins. Plus you need to disconnect all the wiring harness.
All told, I've got about $390 into the mechanisms here. $250 of that cost is the stainless gas struts though. I wasn't looking for bling, I just HATE rust.
I spent 2 weeks thinking about it and trying different ideas before settling on this.
I first thought to throw some gas struts on there. Seems simple enough, but it's not. How to mount, force and throw and huge considerations. I tried a couple different sizes and quickly found I needed quite a bit of throw to go the full swing (from closed to 100 degrees). I've alot more respect for the people engineering the struts on those giant liftgates out there. Plus, they need to assist in opening, hold it open, and not fight you on the way down. That's somewhat of a trick.
So I looked at the H2, it has a torsion spring in there at the hinge and requires you to pull on the center (they have handles on the hood). That doesn't work for me, our hoods are much much longer and flat, and mounting a handle in the middle of the hood would look really stupid. I think the H2 ones look stupid too. It has cable limiters to hard stop at 90degrees or so.
Anyway, another problem is once the clip is beyond 80 degrees or so, it really wants to roll over. While the struts could hold it, how to mount the struts to the underside so they wouldn't tear through would be a problem. The lower you mount the struts so they don't fight you to close the harder it becomes to hold the hood open from such a low position. So some cable limiters to the top edge are in order. Plus, at full open, that hood is really up there, most garages wouldn't take it.
So, after much consideration, I came to this solution:
I have a nice set of stainless gas struts custom ordered to my needs. There's no place to mount them anyway to get full swing, so I decided on a 2 stage effect.
The struts lift to 45 degrees or so. This puts the clip high enough to check oil, fluids, etc, but no so high where it's gonna hit stuff. I have push button t-handle disconnects to pop the struts loose on one end and I can push the clip to full open position then. This is easy because once at 45 degrees, 90% of the weight is on the hinges and you can use a couple of fingers to push it the rest of the way over.
I then have cable limiters, which are on retractable spools mounted underneath in the wiper train area.
The spring wound cable spools came with much to thin cable, so I restrung them with thicker cable for safety. I then had to make custom cable ends and such, I used spring loaded disconnects on the ends of the cable so I can disconnect them so they are not in the way and I can fully remove the front clip too. All cable and hardware are stainless steel. The are attached to the studs of the rubber hold down straps on the fender sides. This worked well because they go all the way through and I don't have to make any additional holes in the clip or worry about tearing if I just screwed into the underside.
Whew. Way more effort and money than I thought just to open and close the hood.
Struts assist and hold open at 45 degrees or so:
Struts & mounting
The cable spools (nice and hidden)
The Full open position. I can stand in front of the tire. Great access to everything here. That thing is skied!
T-Handle disconnects (w/ lanyard of course!)
The ends of my cable
So, the whole procedure goes like this:
1) Pull disconnect pins on H1 style brush gaurd, fold brush guard down.
2) Undo H2 style rubber side hold down straps
3) lift hood to 45 degree position.
4) If you want to full open, pull t-handle disconnects, push foward to cable limited hard stop position
The clip is fully removable, once past 60 degrees or so, it can slide off to the drivers side. It's kinda of feat to get it back on though, 2 people is a struggle. It's not the weight, it's light enough, it's just big and awkward to hold in the air, balance and try to line it back onto the hinge pins. Plus you need to disconnect all the wiring harness.
All told, I've got about $390 into the mechanisms here. $250 of that cost is the stainless gas struts though. I wasn't looking for bling, I just HATE rust.
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