33 Coupe Before Paint 1
3/13/05
Now that the interior is just about
finished, I needed to take care of a few small projects before I take
apart the whole car and paint it. One of the things that I needed to do
was add some support to the hood because it's a little flimsy. What you
see here are some hood braces made by
Dan
Fink Metal Works. These braces are made out of steel and are
3/8" diameter round bar with a small flange on the bottom on each
end for some screws. It also came with four aluminum risers in case you
needed one of the braces mounted a little higher. Now the way these
braces are to be mounted is to NOT have them touch the underside of the
hood at all. To be honest, I didn't see how this was going to work
without them touching the underside of the hood at first but after
installing the first one, the light came on.
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To get an idea of where they were
going to be placed, I removed the hood and set them on the hinge rails
and wouldn't you know it, they lined up right where the hood hinges
were....figures huh! Well there's no-way I'm gonna move my hood hinges
so the braces had to be modified. Notice the shorter one at the bottom
of the picture and how close it's going to be to the radiator tank and
filler neck. The distance between the radiator and filler neck is only
one inch so this brace will have to be placed just right so it doesn't
hit anything.
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I started on the smaller one first
because it wasn't going to need as much cutting as the other one. What I
tried to do was make my life easier by cutting one end off the flanges
and using only one screw on each end to hold it in place. By cutting
this small piece off, it allowed me to move it just enough to clear my
radiator tank, radiator cap and my hood hinge. I laid out for some holes
and used some 10-32 screws to hold it in place. After picking the hood
up to place it back on the car and check it for fit, I couldn't believe
how much stiffer it was. Now that the short one was done, it was time
for the longer one.
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The longer one needed to be cut in
order for it to fit so I grabbed my hacksaw and made two pieces out of
it. After cutting it, I placed it in good location where it wouldn't interfere
with the hinges which left me with a difference of about one inch to
long.
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