Hood and Louvers mounting

[chromecarz00]

2 years as of today since I got the Sterling, and still a work in progress - go figure hah.

For the front hood, I'm thinking of mounting via a simple bolt on each side drilled straight into the body. Sounds right? I may put a strut in but worried about mounting it properly. Any advice?

For the rear, the shape of the louver makes it difficult as far as I can see to mount a piano hinge properly. Do y'all typically just use the small 1" or so ridge and mount from that to the body? Mine is more rounded than the body line, so I just don't see how it would attach smoothly. 200nm strut, 1 or 2?

How do you lock the louver into place? I'm thinking of using some of the hood pins, but open to suggestions.

 

[RangerBEH]

I was just poking around the new sterling site and they added a bunch of hardware. I wish they had pictures of it installed in a car but that should be a big help for anyone stuck on hardware like me

 

[vpogv]

I HATED this part of my build and after high hopes of finding a factory hinge that would work I just went with the simple pin approach.

Took Brett's findings and used old blazer (or Jeep) rear glass struts and then dug up an electric/cable driven latch off of ebay. Struts are worth and only took two tries to get them mounted correctly.

Now, for the rear louvers a piano hinge is how they typically were attached. Once again, I stole Brett's idea and picked up a pair of gas caps and will be using them as recessed hinges. I'll do some digging and find what they were from. EDIT: Here it is: CLICK ME A few more pictures in the pages to follow as well.

 

[islandman]

I HATED this part of my build and after high hopes of finding a factory hinge that would work I just went with the simple pin approach.

Took Brett's findings and used old blazer (or Jeep) rear glass struts and then dug up an electric/cable driven latch off of ebay. Struts are worth and only took two tries to get them mounted correctly.

Now, for the rear louvers a piano hinge is how they typically were attached. Once again, I stole Brett's idea and picked up a pair of gas caps and will be using them as recessed hinges. I'll do some digging and find what they were from. EDIT: Here it is: CLICK ME A few more pictures in the pages to follow as well.

you could do a slight variation on that bonnet hinge, so that the bolt stays perpendicular and the gas rams don't push the bonnet forward.

details on what I did here :

http://www.sterlingkitcars.com/memb...r-nova-across-pond-saying-hi-2.html#post11663

 

[chromecarz00]

Fantastic ideas. I think I'm going to go for the piano hinge or perhaps one of the gas caps one.

Hood bolts seem simple enough, albeit not the prettiest solution.

I'll report back with what I go with - a trip to home depot is in order

 

[ratrog64]

This is what I did for the #114 car to hinge the hood.

http://www.sterlingkitcars.com/memb...ournals-see-our-projects/1355-114-ccc-52.html

On the #068 car we didn't even use the Plastic insert, The fiberglass was thick enough to just drill a 1/4" hole in the side of the hood. Using a rod keeps it from wobbling around since it is supported the full width of the hood.

 

[chromecarz00]

Hmm, I rather like the full width idea. I may try it with a steel rod I have lying around. Did you just give it a slight bend on the bench, or is it thin enough that it contours on its own?

 

[ratrog64]

I used a 1/4" x 48" round rod from HomeDepot the first time. It follows the contour of the hood with a little encouragement but not much trouble. No prebending required. After proof of concept I ordered some stainless rods from ebay to replace the regular steel rods that will rust in time. Its soild as a rock and works better then I had hoped. I have already done it again on Ray's car #068 without the plastic bushing and will do it the same on my #310 car. Quick, simple and works great! I will use little o-rings between the hood and body like islandman did when I do the final assembly.