92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Ok, so I wanted to do something different with my Camaro, and I’m huge Corvette fan so I thought I’d reverse the way the hood opens so it tilts forward like the Vettes. I’ve never seen it done on one at a show and I was only able to find 3 online. One of them was a real hack job, he used what looked like a chandelier chain to hold the hood open. No one around me does stuff like that to their cars where I’m at. It’s all the usual Fast and Furious stuff - wings and fart cans and ugly body kits. Rarely you’ll run across someone who actually added the ***** to back up the looks.

In looking into how to do this it turns out that GM made a few cars in the late 80’s/early 90’s with a reversed hood besides the Corvette. The hinge I used was from an 85-90 Buick Electra. Park Avenues had them as well. I got the hinge from a U-Pull junkyard about an hour from me, and there are 2 more of these in a U-Pull about a half hour from me. It cost me all of $10 for the hinge and the springs. Total cost for everything including the hinge/springs, the drill bit and tap, and the steel bar ran just over $30. It turns out that it is almost the perfect width to fit across the core support on our cars, only being about 1-2” short from a perfect fit. I thought about cutting the center bar that connects the 2 sides and either welding in a section to make it longer, or cutting the bar out altogether. I ended up not going this route for 2 reasons: 1 – I wasn’t sure I could weld straight enough to widen it and have it line up properly, and 2 – With the weight of the hood, I didn’t want it to flex or twist from side to side.


Pics of the initial trial fit of the hinge. I will be using the frontmost fender bolt and mounting hole for 1 bolt on the hinge, and will have to fab a mount for the second bolt.

Sorry about the poor quality of the pics, my wife won’t let me take the good digital camera into the garage, something about flying sparks and tools. These were taken with my cell phone which doesn’t like anything but perfect, outdoors-on-a-sunny-day kind of lighting.

This is not meant to be an end-all, precise/exact set of directions on how to do this, it is just a chronicle of my experience with it. Use it as a guide, but if you screw your car up, don't blame me!

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

The first issue I ran into was that when the hood was closed the hinge would need to be where the coolant overflow and washer fluid reservoirs are. That wasn’t really a concern since I had planned on replacing those with a singe tank that had provisions for both. You can see it sitting on top the intake plenum in the first pic. It’s from an old Bronco I found in the junkyard. After removing those, I still didn’t have enough room for the hinge when the hood was closed, so out came the BFH and I coerced some more room from the wheel wells. It didn’t take much, maybe a ½” or so. I also had to trim some off the hinges as you can see in the third pic.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I also had to trim the fenders a little so the hinge mounts would sit flush. It was just the little lip along the edge. I also had to trim the hinge arms so that they wouldn’t hit the underside of the hood’s outer ribs. In the pics here, it shows I only trimmed a little off the hinge arms, but I ended up going back and trimming that whole edge off the arms.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

After that, I had to cut a small section out of the hood itself to clear the rubber bump stops for the hinge arms. I will go back when I go to do the bodywork on the hood and close those cutouts up. Then I was able to close the hood flush with the fenders. I had already pulled the nose and impact bumper off the car along with the radiator in preparation for a V8 swap so I was able to squeeze in through the radiator hole in the core support to check the alignment of everything from underneath the hood.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Once everything closed properly, I crawled through the radiator hole and contorted myself enough to be able to mark the locations of the bolt holes I would need to make on the bottom of the hood. Turns out that I would need to put a bolt into the side of one of the support ribs, so out came the BFH again and I tweaked the hinge arms enough that the bolt holes lined up more or less right on the flat part of the support rib.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

After that, I took a piece of flat steel stock, 1 1/2”x1/4” and cut it to length to fit inside the rib to give the bolts something to grab on to. I cut open the front end of the ribs and tacked a long piece of welding wire to the end of each piece so I could hold it in place inside the rib till I tacked it into place. I drilled a couple of holes into the support rib so I could tack the bar into place. On the passenger’s side the welding wire wasn’t tacked on all that well and broke off as soon as I got the bar inside the rib. It slid the whole way down into the hood by the factory hinge. I managed to get it back into position after a lot of swearing/praying/pushing/prying and some creative use of magnets and picks/hooks. I ended up using a couple of strong magnets from an old computer hard drive to hold it in place while I tacked it. I also cut a small hole in the side of the rib so I could slip my needlenose visegrips in to help hold it in place.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

More pics of welding the bars in place. Don't pay attention to the welds, my MIG was running low on gas and I went back and redid some of them so they would be strong enough

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Then I conned my wife into helping me unbolt the hood and flipp it upside down on top of the car to finish the welding since my welding skills aren’t the greatest, especially upside down. I removed the hood louvers first, I didn’t want to risk them to get cracked/broken. I cut a coupe of holes into the support rib so I could basically do a large plug weld to weld the plate to the inside of the rib. I also welded up the access holes I had cut into the ends of the ribs and ground everything down. Then I drilled and tapped holes for the bolts in the middle of the markings I made for the holes in the hinge brackets. I tapped them for ¼”x 24 UNF, same as the body bolts for the fenders, and most other body mount bolts. I bolted up the hinge for a test fit and then unbolted it and moved the hood off to the side of the garage, leaning against the wall

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

One last pic of the hood upside down, with all the welding/grinding/drilling/tapping completed and the hinge bolted up.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Then next step was to fab mounts for the hinge so I could bolt the bottom of the hinge to the car. I loosened and moved the fenders off to the sides so I had some room to work and made some cardboard templates. I then drilled some holes in the fender supports so I could plug weld the mounts in front and back of the second fender bolt for a good strong mount. I also welded a piece of 1”x1/8” flat steel bar to the back of the sheet metal so the bolt would have something to thread into. I didn’t get pics of these pieces, but I did outline them on the one pic. After I welded the brackets up on the corners, I ground them down flush and bolted the hinge back up using the front fender bolt holes. Then I marked for the rear bolt holes from the hinge mount and removed it to drill and tap the holes.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Pics of the mounts on the other side.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Then I bolted the hinge back up and folded it down flat to lay the hood back on top. I managed to wrestle the hood back on top the car by myself (it was midnight and the wife was asleep) and got it aligned close to where it needed to be. I crawled back through the radiator hole and bolted it up to the hinge and then lifted it up for a test. Basically you have to lift the front of the hood like you are opening it normally, then you tilt it forward. Once I got it lifted up, I installed the helper springs to tilt it forward. The springs are the original springs that came with the hood hinge, and they make lifting the hood almost effortless. It takes less effort to open the hood than it does the doors. Once I got it in the open position I noticed that it wasn’t tilting far enough back and that the front end of the hood would end up inside the nose if it had still been on the car. I closed the hood and loosely bolted the nose back in place for a test fit. Sure enough, the hook on the front of the hood wanted to go straight through where the Camaro emblem had once been.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

More pics of the hood in the open position. I tried to get some pics of where it was hitting the nose, but I don't know how easy it is to see in these pics.

tony_cogliandro

iTrader: (3)

thanks for the step by step walk through!
I downloaded the page and all the pics so that I can do it later, way later.
but it looks great.
thanks again.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I ended up having to cut off the original hinge stops on the hood bracket side of the hinge and welding in new stops. I cut the new stops from a leftover piece of the 1”x1/8” bar I had used for the bottom rear bolt mounts. I reinstalled the nose and secondary hood latch so I could test the clearance and mark where the new stops had to be welded onto the hinge. Once I had that marked, I closed the hood and removed the hinge. I cut a hole in the side of the hinge and inserted the bar through the hinge so that I could weld it to the inside of the hinge bracket as well as the outer side where it would rest against the hinge arm. I got it welded up and put everything back together for a final test fit. The secondary latch hook *just* clears the front of the nose. It’s a good thing I don’t have the one piece grille on the front of my Camaro because it would certainly hit it. As it is, I need to install a small felt pad on the underside of the hood because it rests on the front of the nose where it comes to a point. It doesn’t push against, it’s just barely touching it. Again, I tried getting pics, but it was almost impossible with the lighting I had to work with. It's a small garage with bad lighting, but at least it's a place I can work out of the elements and with a little bit of heat in the winter.

All in all, it was a pretty easy project, the biggest problem I ran into was running out of shielding gas about halfway through the welding. I had to wait a few days till I could exchange the tank. With work and the kids, I only get to work on the car about 3 nights a week for about 3-4 hours depending on what time the kids are in bed. Even with that limited amount of time it only took me about 2 weeks to do it. I still have to put the finishing touches on it like painting the bare metal and finishing grinding/smoothing the welds, but that will get done when I go to paint the engine bay and the underside of the hood later this winter.

And probably the best part of all, I don’t have to put up with the completely shot and expensive to replace hood shocks anymore.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I forgot to mention, if anyone wants the original, full-size pics I can email them. Some I shrunk down to save space and allow them to load faster and some I forgot to. Or if anyone needs any other pics, let me know. I have it all apart right now to clean/smooth/paint the engine bay as well as a V8 swap, but I'll see what I can do.

NemeSS-TyranT

iTrader: (1)

im gonna have to look into this for my car, but i have fiberglass hood

tgk7203

wow that looks awsome cant wait to try this on my car thank you so much and its a cheap mod to boot thanks again

HCR13

iTrader: (5)

I agree, this is very awesome. I would not mind doing this with my Firebird if possible.... I too have a fiberglass hood...

iroc a 86 berli

looks wicked, now get a screamer under the hood! wanna se it when your done, keep up the good work

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

Kudos to you for doing what appears to be a great job!!! Its always fun doing something without a guide, and it seems as tho this write up is the best one...if not the only one so far for doing this mod.

Any chance of your conning your wife into letting you take some better pictures with a camera?? How about a video of opening/closing the hood? Just would be neat to see...

J.

Stephen

iTrader: (12)

What did you do for the rear 2 rods ("locks") where the Buick hood slides in to, when the hood is shut?

freeway

Hello,

Awesome! Please if you could send me all your specs, measurements, part names including year and any helpful install notes. You are a pioneer man. Thanks in advance!

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the replies and compliments guys. As far as I know this is the only writeup on here, one of the reasons I made sure I took pics and notes. Since the front end has been stripped for the V8 swap I won't be able to get any pics or video till the spring. Once I can get it outside in better lighting I can get both and post them here.

As for the rear "locks" I wasn't going to put them in initially but then I realized that they probably put them in for a reason. Like preventing the hood from flying up at highway speeds. I am going back to the JY to get those parts hopefully next week and once I'm ready to put the hood back on I will see what I can do with them.

Freeway - I don't really have much in the way of measurements as I kinda just made it fit as I went along. The hood hinge I used is a stock hinge pulled from a late 80's-early 90's Buick Park Avenue/Electra in a local U-Pull Junkyard. I used the stock springs for the hinge. The pieces I welded in I made a cardboard template for using an old pizza box and had laying around. The sheet metal I used was 16 gauge and the dimensions of the flat bars are listed above. I took the entire front end off along with the radiator/fan/battery/etc so I had room to crawl into the engine bay through the radiator opening to mark the locations of the bolt holes on the underide of the hood. I think I still have the templates for the mounts laying around, if I didn't throw them out I'll measure them and get the dimensions posted.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I finally got the brackets measured and drawn up using Paint. I don't have access to CAD or anything like that unfortunately. I measured everything to the nearest 1/32" and tried to draw them somewhat to scale.

HCR13

iTrader: (5)

thanks. I gonna bookmark this thread when I have a garage...

kzhurley

iTrader: (7)

Sweet idea!!! Great write up.. Seen this a couple of days ago and went yesterday and picked up the hinge...

HCR13

iTrader: (5)

is there any way you can get some better pics? Maybe a side shot? I need to see how far down the tip of the hood hangs over the bumper, to see if it would be possible on a Firebird...

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

I dont think the bumper clearance would be as much of a problem as the difference in hood construction would be. I think the camaro hoods are much more rigid than the bird hoods. The bird hoods are thin and pretty flimsy especially up at the front where the hinges would go.

Not saying you couldnt do it...but I have a feeling you'd need to do some reinforcing to the hood structure, and run hinge supports back alittle further under the hood...just to make it stand up to lots of opening and closing.

Also, the mounts for it would be right over top of the radiator instead of off to the sides. Unless you built a completely custom hinge that mounts off to the sides, and lifts the hood WAY up, clears the pop up lights, then drops the hood past the bumper. Which would be fun. haha

Ide like to see it done on a bird though...I just think it would be a totally different animal of a project.

J.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

KZhurley - Let me know how it goes! If you have any questions, let me know, i'll help as much as possible.

HCR-Sorry, everything is taken apart right now for paint and my V8 swap. I'm honestly not sure I could get a side shot in my garage anyhow. My garage is so small, I can only work on one side of the car at a time. When the hood is open, the "hook" latch reaches the middle of the front license plate area. The front of the bumper where it comes to a point is right behind that hook. You can adjust the angle tha the hood sits at when its open as I did to gain some clearance if needed. It's just a question of whether the final angle is one you can live with. I ended up with the hood almost vertical when open. On the car I pulled the hinge from, the hood opened up to about the same angle as on my Camaro. I plan on taking some pics with the good digital cam once everything is back together and I can get it outside in some nicer weather.

ghettocruiser - I had to reinforce my hood for this to work. I'm not sure how much/if the Firebird hoods are thinner, I figured they would be the same. Unfortunately, I don't have a Firebird near me I can look at and the one at the local JY is missing the hood. The hood hinge on mine runs over the radiator and just a hair behind it. The bar is not straight, if it was, it would run directly over the radiator. It actually has a bend in it to clear the top of the radiator when its closed. As far as opening it, you described almost exactly how its done. You pop the latch like normal, lift the front up about 12-15" then grab it back by the windshield and tilt the whole thing forward. As long as the Firebird nose doesn't stick out any farther than a Camaro's it should clear just fine. Can you get a pic posted of the underside of your hood? I'm curious to see what the differences are.

ghettocruiser

iTrader: (4)

I dont think the bird hood is really much "thinner" per sae...but the area that goes around the pop up lights and that meets up with the nose just seems less sturdy. I dont have much wrench time with camaros though...so I guess Im talking alittle out of my knowledge range.

What I meant about mounting the hinges over the radiator... Where you have the hinges mounted now would be directly interferring with the firebird pop up headlight assemblys. Also...there isnt any hood in that spot due to the pop up cover. So you'd have to move the hinges inboard Ide think. Which would put them pretty close to the radiator. I guess you could move them in, build a structure, and have the hing assembly basically in the nose area. Youd have to extend the hinge brackets back to have a bigger spread so the hood doesnt go all wobbly when its up...but I guess its doable. Anything is with alittle fab and creativity.

The only other way I can think of would be completely custom hinges, based off the GM design, that mount back behind the pop ups, but still allow the hood to move far enough...which I think would still cause issues with the lights.

Now im interested in figuring this out. And actually...after looking again at both my pics and your pics...maybe the headlights wouldnt interfere as much as I thought....

J.

Just for a "craps and giggles" type of reference...here's a pic of my car showing the headlight area. The way the nose slopes down and all...it gets pretty tight under the hood up front.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Ok, I see what you mean now. I'm opposite you in that I don't have much wrench time on Firebirds. Pretty much all of it is radios, not underhood. I thought that the headlights were in the same place as Camaros, just with the popup motors instead of the recesses. I didn't realize that the front support structure was different between them. Mounting them closer to the radiator might be doable, I'd have to see a pic. I would just be worried about any structure interfering with the radiator fan or serp belt. It might be possible to take the original hinges and just reverse them and move them to the front of the engine bay. That was one of the first things I thought of when I was looking into this, but I think clearance issues kept me from doing it. It might be possible to weld in a section to the arms to make them longer.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the pic. Looking at that, the only thing I think will interfere on the hinge is the stop. If you look at the middle pic in post #3, you can see where the hinge stop overhangs the front of the core support a bit. As long as that overhang does not hit the top of the light cover, I think it will be fine. Looking at you pic, I think there will be *just* enough room. There is a little lip on the hinge stop that could be removed to gain an additional 1/8-1/4" clearance. Then we are just back to the original question of the clearing the front of the hood.

camarozz383

iTrader: (2)

hey i had mine done,but it was different than yours,here are some pics.

Pics of my decision over 20" or 22".

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Do you have any pics of the hinge you used? Your hood is higher and at more of an angle than mine when open.

camarozz383

iTrader: (2)

i made my own hinges, but the setup you got look nicer imo, the only problem i had was my hood didn't come far enough ahead like yours, but i can try and find some pics.

Vader

Fiero parts would make this fairly easy. The pivot pount is all the way at the front, and the leading edge of the hood doesn't intrude below the line of the body much at all when opened. The latches would be really difficult, but hinges and prope rod should be easy.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

I never thought of using Fiero hood hinges, but then I'm not all that familiar with them. There are 2 Fieros in the JY near me, I'll have to look at them next time I go out there. The only potential problem that pops into my head is weight. Do you think the Fiero hinges could handle our hoods? These might be a good solution to Firebirds as I'm not sure the hinge I used would work on a Firebird.

mister_hudson

iTrader: (3)

Way to go! Fantasic idea!

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Thanks!

Vader

I've been pretty intimate with several Fieros. Their hoods are wider, comprised of two fairly thick layers of GRP, and are at least as heavy as my TA hood. The hinges should easily handle the load.



The concern is that a Fiero strut bar mechanism can be connected to a point on the ThirdGen hood which will support the hood without folding the sheet metal. There may not be enough strength of structure in the required area on a ThirdGen hood to safely support it with the Fiero strut assembly. The Fiero hood prop strut is easily robust enough to hold the hood, along with a scoop, cowl flaps, and anything else you could throw at it.

However, that problem should be easy to overcome with a long prop rod stored along the cowl or edge of the hood.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Just got back from a JY and was looking at a Fiero they had there. I grabbed the prop rod and the hood latch mechanism. The hinges were bent so I left them. Looking at the way the Fiero hood works, I think it could work for our hoods with some modifications. The biggest problem I see is where to attach the hinges on our front ends. There is really nothing there but some fiberglass and open air under the front of the hoods. It may be possible to build a structure to support the hood if you tie it into the metal of the front impact bar and then to the core suppport. The prop rod looks like it should hold the weight easily. I think it could be mounted to the side of the strut tower like it in on the Fieros and then it would be best to mount it to the outer "rib" on the underside of the hood. I'll have to lay my hood back on the car and crawl under it and look when I get a chance to check measurements and clearances.

As far as keeping the hood closed at speed, I like the way the Fiero latch is mounted inside the cowl. I think I should be able to easily fab something up to allow me to bolt it inside there and use it. The one issue I will have is that to open my hood with the hinge I used, you have to lift the front first, then slide the entire hood towards the front of the car. Fiero hoods are designed to be lifted straight up from the back. I'm thinking I can cut an opening in the cowl area of the firewall, right above the distributor and then weld a hook onto the bottom of the hood so that the hook slides into the hole in the firewall where it is grabbed by the latch. Again, I'll have to get the hood laid back on top the car and crawl underneath to look.

Hopefully Saturday night I can get some testing done on this. I gotta finish rebuilding the trans before I can start on anything else. I don't want it sitting around opened up for too long, too many animals in the house to get hair in it.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Ok, so I have am just about ready to drop the 350 in, and decided that maybe I should look into some kind of latch mechanism to keep the rear of the hood from flying up at 75MPH. I know the Buicks that I swiped the hinge from had a pair of large *****/bolts/whatever you want to call them on their hoods. They kinda look like the door latch strikers on the door jambs. They are bolted to the sides of the hood and then slide into hooks when you put the hood down. I don't think there is enough room on my Camaro for this type of system, either on the sides of the hood or on the fender support rails by the windshield. I also looked into using a Fiero-type latch mechanism(Thanks for that idea Vader!) and mounting it into the cowl vent area between the wiper blades. Unfortunately, since the hood tilts down, then slides back to close, this won't work either. What I ended up doing was making a custom latch. It's not complicated or fancy, just a bar that slides into a channel I cut and reinforced in the pinch weld across the top of the firewall. Pics and details to follow....

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

There are 2 reasons I decided to use this method to secure the hood. First was that it was simple, effective, and I was able to use some scrap steel pieces I had laying around since I'm running low on funds. Second was that next winter I plan on fabbing a customer 3 point STB that ties into the firewall and needed some way to reinforce the mounting point at the firewall.

First thing I did was take a piece of mild steel bar, 1/8" thick x 1" wide x about 7" long that I had laying around and cut a notch into the middle of it to accept the bar coming down from the hood to the crossbar. This I welded to the underside of the pinch weld that runs across the top of the firewall with a couple plug welds using holes I drilled through the pinch weld seam. I used 2 welds on either side of the notch, leaving enough room between them to be able to bolt in the arms for the 3 point STB. I may go back and weld the underside of the pinch weld along the ends of the bar for some extra reinforcement, haven't decided on this yet since I HATE welding upside-down.

Sorry, I don't have any pics of the bar before I welded it in, but you can get the idea from the pics of it in place. Then I cut the matching notch in the pinch weld. The notch will accept a 5/16" diameter rod which should be plenty strong enough to mount the catch to the hood.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Some more pics of the top of the pinch weld area. Sorry bout the darkness/quality of the pics. I had to use the cellphone camera again, and it doesn't like low light conditions.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

To mount the latch to the underside of the hood, I took a scrap piece of 16ga. sheet metal and welded a nut to the back of it. I guess the nut was a softer type of steel cause I pretty much melted the whole thing while welding it. I cut some threads into a 5/16" steel rod I had laying around using a 5/16-18 die. I cut about 3 1/2" of threads so I'd be sure of having enough adjustability to make it fit. I threaded the rod into the nut before welding it to make sure I didn't mess up the threads of the nut while welding. I will drill a hole at each corner of the sheet metal and weld that to the underside of the hood so that the nut is inside the hood and I can thread the rod into it. I sprayed everything with some rattlecan self-etching primer to help keep rust at bay once I was done.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

To line up the mount on the underside of the hood, I closed the hood and crawled into the engine bay through the radiator opening and held the rod in place in the notch I made in the firewall and against the underside of the hood. Then I took the trusty BFH and smacked it a few times to make a mark on the hood. After extricating myself and opening the hood, I drilled a 5/16" hole. I circled the hole I drilled in the pic in red using MS Paint, crude, but it gets the point across. You can see the hole for the middle hood height adjuster right by it. I tried to get this latch as close to the middle of the hood as possible so I only need to make one. I'll have to go back before I weld the mount to the hood and enlarge the hole a bit so that nut I welded on the back of the mount will fit inside the hood and the mount will sit flush with the underside of the hood. I'll either need to trim the mount a bit so that it doesn't cover the hole for that height adjuster or need to drill a hole in the mount so that the adjuster screws into that instead of the hood. Haven't decided which will work better yet.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

So far, I've got the mount for the underside of the hood, the notch in the pinch weld for the latch to catch under, and a threaded rod to bridge the gap between the two. When I was going to make the catch, I had originally planned on just welding another piece of the 5/16" rod to the end of the one I cut the threads into so that it formed a "T." This way, the crossbar of the "T" would catch under the pinch weld, securing the hood. I started thinking about what it would look like with the hood open and realized that it would look kinda stupid. So I took another piece of scrap steel I had, this one was 2"x1/4"x about 8" long and cut out a Chevy Bowtie to use. I found a good plain pic of it online and sized it to what I needed and printed it out for a template. I needed it to be 1" wide to fit fully under the pinch weld when closed. The width ended up about 2 3/4" IIRC. I just resized the height to what I needed and let the program determine the proper width to keep the proportions right. After cutting it out from the steel bar with the angle grinder and the Dremel, I drilled a 5/16" hole in the center for the threaded rod. I should have used the drill press, I know, but it was in the other garage(I have a 2 car garage, but the bays are closed off from each other) and I didn't feel like going over there and setting it up. Of course the hole ended up a bit crooked, but I was able to widen it a bit and get the rod straight. After welding, grinding, and primer, I now have a catch to slip under the pinch weld and keep the hood closed.

92RS_Ttop

iTrader: (3)

Once I get everything in and welded to the bottom of the hood, I'll get some pics posted of it in place and from the underside of the hood when it's closed. I know a lot of you wanted some better pics of the hood when its opened, and I think I saw a request for a vid of it opening too. Once I get the engine and transmission in and can back it out of the garage for some room, I'll get those taken care of and posted. I'll use the good camera for those.

omnipotentgoku

iTrader: (1)

I don't have much to contribute to this, but I am watching this mod because I want to add it to the gallery. I have pics of a few completed reversals.

http://www.omnipotent-goku.com/iroc/gallery/album103