I recently purchased a fiberglass, liftoff hood. once i get the hood pins installed, im wondering what is an accuate way of marking places to drill for the hood pins (in the hood)?

there isnt much room for error with this, seeing as i would like the hood to fit properly and actually look decent.

 

If it were me, I think I'd sacrifice a roll of the wife's lipstick. I'd install hood and get it aligned without the pins in place. Then I'd paste a glob of lipstick on top of the installed pins, then close hood slowly, making sure it's aligned properly, until the hood touches the lipstick and makes a round mark on the underside - and drill there.

(You know my wife loves when I come in and ask for lipstick )

 

I agree......I use this trick when installing drywall around electrical boxes

 

One good thing is the round cover they have to go around the hole can hide a little fudge room as needed. only done it 3 times in my life [ 2 hoods, 1 notchback] and the best lay out, measure 50 times in many direction, those covers saved me for a bit of fudge room.

 

With a "lift off" hood. Sounds like at least a two man job. Would he drill the front pins first then use those to set the back pins ?I'm thinking the first photo may be a bit over kill for a DD so I was thinking the second one could be it.Is that the end result your looking for ?

 

What I did with mine is use blue locktite. I put a few drops on the top of the pin and gently lowered the hood. I then used one of the christmas tree drill bits to make the first hole from the bottom to the top. After I had that one I then began drilling that hole from the top down until I had the size I needed. The reason I did top down is that it makes a little rough edge that I didn't want on the top. Go slow and keep on fitting.

 

When I pinned my hood this is how I did it too. I used bearing grease on the tops of the studs, and closed the hood to mark the spots. My hood wasn't a lift off hood though.