Hood safety latches for the Zephyr

[Tom Wells]

I wanted to prevent the hood from flying open on the track so I started researching hood pins. I found out I didn't like the usual pins that stick through the hood and are secured with an external clip. What I did like is a new (to me) kind of hood latch.

Here's where I got them: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B002 ... ge_o00_s00

They are called AeroCatch Plus Flush Hood Latch and Pin Kit - Black, Part # 120-2000

Here's what we had to do (thanks to Herb & Sandy for the help!):

First, we had to decide location. Since the hood bumpers on a lot of Ford products and also the Zephyr are located fortuitously, we decided to use the existing holes. The bumpers were removed, and then with some difficulty, the captive nuts. The slots the nuts came out of were quite usable.

Then we had to locate where the holes in the hood had to be put. This was a little bit interesting, but yielded to our intellects when we decided to use a 1-1/4" holesaw to remove the lower part of the double thickness of the hood structure that was there. Then we put a stud in the slot, approximately centered in the holesawed hole and lightly closed the hood on it.

The mark on the underside of the hood was used to drill a 3/32" pilot hole to use when placing the template for the latch itself. There are crosshairs on the template that crossed at the drilled hole:

Hoodpin templates.JPG (1.63 MiB) Viewed 2849 times

You can just see the small holes where the template lines were marked onto the hood.

Then the holes were holesawed, the smaller were 1-1/4" diameter, the larger were 1-3/4" diameter:

Holes sawed closeup left.JPG (1.56 MiB) Viewed 2849 times

Holes sawed closeup right.JPG (1.12 MiB) Viewed 2849 times

Hoodpins holesawed.JPG (1.74 MiB) Viewed 2848 times

Lots of work went into making openings below the template holes so the backing plates could be slid into place and installed:

Left catch.JPG (1.26 MiB) Viewed 2848 times

Right catch.JPG (1.39 MiB) Viewed 2848 times

More photos in the next message.

[Tom Wells]

Hood latches continued...

The hood pins were next. Shock absorber washers were perfect for the job:

Bare Hoodpin.JPG (1.6 MiB) Viewed 2848 times

The rubber bumper tubing was supplied with the kit:

Rubber on hoodpin.JPG (1.66 MiB) Viewed 2848 times

Both the pins and the shock absorbing tubing needed cutting to length after the top parts of the latches were installed.

Overall hoodpins.JPG (1.65 MiB) Viewed 2848 times

Here's the final external view:

Finished catch.JPG (892.65 KiB) Viewed 2848 times

Just when I thought this great addition would make the car ready for Daytona, we took a ride. The right rear tire scraped the inner fender at the slightest bump or turn. Guess what my next project is?