I had been putting off the installation of the tilt forward hood kit for a long time due to the general state of the front end. It was becoming a chore to continue stepping over the large box in an overcrowded garage, so today was the day to get it off the floor. The kit was purchased from No Limit Engineering and it is pretty sweet. In short, it converts the factory hood that tilts up the "normal way" into the reverse, where it opens up near the cab and folds forward over the front end like shown in the internet reference picture below:
This is a long and tedious process to complete, so there are lots of pictures. First, the dirty scoundrel that completed the last restoration of this vehicle saw it fit to weld over the factory hood hinge mounting holes on the cab. I need those holes back, so they had to be located and drilled out.
Tools of the trade:
Holes marked and punched.
New holes:
Sprayed some primer back over the bare metal for good measure.
It turns out the hood kit was missing eight nuts to fasten the new brackets, so those were added to the grocery list for the next trip to the store. While the primer was drying on the cab, the factory hood braces needed to be removed to make room for the new tilt forward mechanism. Upside down hood in the front yard:
The factory hood brace brackets are spot welded to the sheet metal, so they had to be drilled out and pried off. Spot welds located:
Drilled with small drill bit through both pieces of sheet metal.
A larger hole was drilled thorough the top piece of sheet metal only to leave more material remaining on the hood.
The rear part of the brace rods bolt to the hood, so those were removed.
The spot welds came loose with little resistance after the drilling and some vigorous wiggling.
Here is the new tilt forward mechanism that bolts to the hood in place of the old factory brace rods. The end fittings are adjustable for final fit on the vehicle to ensure all of the sheet metal seams line up correctly.
New parts fitted to the hood.
The brackets had to be measured carefully and centered on the hood. The problem is that all of the old sheet metal back in the day was made to loose tolerances, which makes finding the center of anything difficult. This was accomplished with a tape measure, two pairs of vise grips, and extra time to measure it twice.
New bolts installed.
This is the backing plate that goes behind the new hood bracket where the old spot welds were located. It is now the thickest/stiffest thing on the whole hood assembly. Good stuff.
Bam!
Step 38: Stop and cook breakfast tacos because, you know, hunger.
After eating the best breakfast tacos this side of Mexico, it was time to drill the new holes for the tilt forward mechanism on the front valence. This part gave me some anxiety because the instructions say to basically drill two identical holes in the center of a smooth radius, oblong feature on the valence 36" apart. It was hard enough to feel good about marking this spot on one side let alone feeling good that you guessed exactly the same spot on both sides. Here it is marked up with tape:
Drilled.
Looks good. We'll see how well it works once the hood is mounted...
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