Hood safety latches for the Zephyr
Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:06 pm
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:
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:
Lots of work went into making openings below the template holes so the backing plates could be slid into place and installed:
More photos in the next message.
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 2860 times
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 2860 times
- Holes sawed closeup right.JPG (1.12 MiB) Viewed 2860 times
- Hoodpins holesawed.JPG (1.74 MiB) Viewed 2859 times
- Left catch.JPG (1.26 MiB) Viewed 2859 times
- Right catch.JPG (1.39 MiB) Viewed 2859 times