Bodywork, Paint, Interior, Trim, & Wiring

I wanted a forward tilting hood but I couldn't use a simple hinge because the front of the hood has a curve to it. The hinge point would have had to be forward of the furthest forward part of the hood to work, if not the front edge of the hood would just push down on the top of the grille and not open.

Some Saab's and BMW's have hoods that move the whole hood forward and up to get it in front of the grille and then you lift the hood to the vertical position. I have also seen similar hinges used on custom pickups that have been converted to forward tilting hoods. So here is the hinge mechanism.



The tube is a 1" thin wall steel with bronze bushings pressed into each end. It pivots on pins supported by brackets screwed to the car. There are machined aluminum arms that clamp onto the tube that have heim joints that attach to brackets on the hood. Attached to the arms are bent pieces of 1/4" aluminum that act as stops to keep the hood from rotating too far forward. The passenger side arm also has a gas spring that pushes the hood forward when the latch is released.





This is what the hood looks like when the gas spring has pushed it forward and the hood has rotated up and forward on the pivot arms.

At the rear of the hood are two rollers (from a BMW) that engage fabricated brackets attached to the foot boxes. These guide the rear of the hood down and back and lock it in place when it has fully seated to the rear.





You can see the wheel of the BMW roller starting to engage the bracket



Here is the hood raised to the vertical position. You can see the brackets on the hood frame that attach to the heim joints on the pivot arms.

That's quite a bit of engineering there.

Excellent!

Great work Jim !! as per usual,,,,, but still Great work !!
Dave

Looks good, what are you using for a latch?

Other than differences in the layout that is very much like my hood mechanism. I found the cross rod to be a necessary element.

Jim

The latch is from a BMW also. It is quite small and has a horseshoe shaped piece that attaches to the hood that engages the latch. It doesn't have to be very big since there is not much pressure trying to open it. All it does is keep the hood from moving forward. I'm going to put it on tomorrow and I'll take a picture.

Just like everything else on this car.
Very nicely crafted Jim!

Here is the latch from a BMW, not sure which model but it had a forward tilting hood. All the ones with the forward tilting hood use the same one. It is a nice compact unit and I picked up the cable release also

The hood mechanism is from a 1987 to 1993 BMW 320i.
I used to have the 1993 version. It had the first edition fuel injection from Bosch.
Werner

I think it must come on other models as well. The car it came from was bigger than a 320i

My 76 BMW 530i had the same setup. Think all 3, 5, 6 and 7 series cars had similar till mid 90s.

I took a picture of the horse shoe shaped piece that engages the latch. It is quite small but if it holds a BMW hood closed it will certainly hold mine.

Should do fine.
I'm not even putting a latch on mine, but trusting in the hydraulics to hold it shut. I've had a gage on the pump for 2 weeks now and it still has a couple hundred pounds of pressure on the close line so I think it'll be OK. Based on experience with Dan B's TR4, if the latch isn't there the hood will just rise a couple inches in the rear to equalize pressure, and it uses a simple hinge. Where the front of the hood has to lift first it might not even rise at all.

Jim

That is just too cool!

Ted Lathrop's TR6 doesn't have a latch, either. He says it lifts a bit around 135. :)

I'm anxious to drive the car with the hood on and take some differential pressure measurements above and below the hood to see how much lift it is creating.