K guys I am asking the EXPERTS , looking for the real TWIST LOCK hood pins for the best price . And here is the kicker , will they work on the California dreaming concept hood ????????????????

 

clairification of the hood (as in pics) would help alot in determining what you are looking for. Most of us that have the Venom hood from TruFiber use the pins here labeled as '1968 Shelby & California Special GT/CS Hood pins' http://www.cobranda.com/19shhopinbr1.html and are 'real Twist Lock pins'.

If these arent them, you are likely going to need to take and post a pic or two.


Andretti

 

How did you get them to work? any installation instructions? I went to the link and they won't give any help in installing on anything other than what they where originally made for.

 

I read up on another forum how one guy did it in a thread, then someone else posted the way they did it. While mine work, I will be modifying it to 'clean it up' some and make it more 'original'.

I'll see if I can find the link to the thread and later today I'll post a few pics of mine atm. My hood seems to be just a tad shorter than the ones in the thread so mine wouldnt work exactly like theirs did to make the pins work.

Dang....I found the thread but no pictures anymore. I'll pm him and see if he can send me a few since I still intended to upgrade mine to look the same since it looked so good.

Also, Trufiber has their own set of 'pin' hooks they sell. Here is a link to them: http://www.trufiber.com/Trufiber_Mus...0024-hpk-1.htm

I gotta admit....I wasnt too sure they would have worked for me, but now I'm thinking I need to look closer and do some more research. The other guy did his with all of about $15 worth of metal and a very small bit of welding. If any of you have a friend who can weld or if you can, I would go with the much cheaper way (but just as good) way his were done. $150 vs. $15 is a pretty big difference to me....and well worth it if you can get it assembled. It was a very simplistic design and really looked good. As soon as I can get him to send me the pics, I'll post them.


Andretti

 

Well I am a welder , so if you can get me the spec sheet or a blue print or something I will see what I can come up with . If i had blue prints or at least something drawn on a napkin , I am sure i can build us something .

 

Might want to check out Cervini ,they have twist locks and hoods to go with.Instructions for stock hood 2

 

Cool! looking forward to the pics.

 

Looks like nice twist locks,just wondering which one to get,since my hood is made by Keanen,not cervini. the cervini site has three different versions.

 

like the true fiber twist locks also,but it says will only fit recess hoods. Not really sure if i can recess the holes to work on my BBR LNR hood by Keanen. more to think about.

 

I'm sure you could....the problem is having the hood changed to be able to use them. There is a really nice GT500 owner on this site who had their earlier TruFiber hood version that they had modified so it could accomidate the recessed twist hood pins (the first few versions didnt have any recessed hole for them), but I'm betting they'd be the first to tell you....its all about how much you want to spend to have someone custom make the recesses. I'd be the first to admit, I could be wrong, but I'm betting it wasnt cheap and for the money I know I'd pass on modifying a hood that doesnt have them. I'd rather go a different pin route or replace the hood with one that already has the recesses and not spend the extra money trying to make one work that had never had them or not been designed to use them, but thats me.

Andretti

 

About how deep is the recessed area? I did a lot of fiber glass work on this car,so I might be able to modify the hood myself before the next paint job.

 

Here's mine I had a local shop install in my RK Sport hood about 5 years ago before anyone had a hood for them. I got them from Mustangs Unlimited and they're for a 71 Mach 1 ...

 

Can you run the Midwest Auto Gear Radiator cover extensions with these? I plan on getting this set up when I get a new hood, but I also want the covers.

 

If you were asking me then yes. There's already a hole in the covers for the bump stops , I just had to enlarge them ...

 

I was just asking anyone that knew, but thank you.

 

I contacted that guy on the other site...he is searching for some pics that he had taken and said when he finds a few he'll send them to me.

Till then, I'll see what I can do about drawing something up showing what he did.


Andretti

 

Cool!

 

The guy at that other site still hasnt found the pictures evidently, so I literally cut some paper up and taped it to try to show what his looked like. I'll post pics and try to explain them tomorrow from work.

Just wanted to post something saying I was still doing something about this and hadnt forgotten. I just wanted to try to give that guy as much time as possible to come up with pics without bothering him about it.

That being said hopefully what I did tonite and will post tomorrow might be of some help.


Andretti

 

Ok....so bear with me here...I literally cut this out of paper to help describe what this guy did. It is far from perfect, but should get the point across. Hopefully, at some point in the near future, I will get ahold of the original pics he took and can post them...till then, this is about as good as it gets.


First, he went to Lowes or somewhere like that and got some decent thickness stock metal. You will need one piece maybe 8" long or so (to be cut into two seperate 4"-5" long pieces). He rounded off the edges to make it look nicer, but it isnt necessary. Basically, this is what it would look like size and shape wise:






While there he also bought some sort of metal tube that was slightly larger diameter round than the actual hood pin. I would take one of them with me and using it as a guide, help determine the size you would need. You obviously wouldnt want something significantly larger, but I wouldnt do anything extremely tight as it will prove difficult to use when its actually installed. You will need to get a piece long enough that it could be cut into two 2"-4" lengths (the length will actually depend on the pin depth as well as the hood fit so I'd definately get too much than have too little and them end up 'short') as 'seen' below:




Now, he took the second piece and then welded it to the first so it would look something like this:




Now, he cleaned up the weld (I think this is actually when he grinded down the edges of the flat piece and rounded them off) and then drilled the two holes in each bracket for the appropriate sized bolts he planned on using to attach it to the car.

Now....thre are two other things needed to do to the rounded piece. Both are important.

First, he needed to drill into the side of the tube all the way through so a wire could be placed from one side to the other so the hood pins have something to grab hold of. To do this though, he had to do some planning in ADVANCE PRIOR TO DRILLING. Determining just how far up or down on the rounded piece to drill for the wire is going to need to be figured out...I'm not sure if he just guessed or had some way of measuring, but he only drilled once for the hole (by his pictures that are now missing on his thread). If I cant figure it out the first time I drill through, I'll just add a second set of holes either above or below (whatever fixes my pins....if they hook up and lock and still sit too high, I'm going to drill a set of holes LOWER than the first time....if its too low and I cant get the pins to grab the wire, I'll drill another set of holes higher up this time) till the hood pins are in a preferred final locked in position heightwise.


Secondly, and JUST as important about the 'height' of the hole you are going to drill is the location...What I mean is this. If you want your pins (on the top of the hood with the hood closed) to be in a certain 'position' this is where you need to determine the direction you want them to face. For instance, here are the pins I am using on mine:



If, when in the locked position, you want the tops of the pins to be 'parallel' to the fender/hood gap, then you will need to figure out in advance how to position the wire. So even though when you first push down on the pins to start locking them, they might not even closely line up to the fender, but when you finish turning them to the final 'locked' position they are in the position you want for a final 'look'. It might require you to drill through at a 12 and 6 oclock position, or it may require you to do a 2 and 8 position, its all going to end up being your preference. If you dont care, then drill them where-ever, but I would suggest doing both the same so at least you dont have two different lock positions. The 'wire' he used to put through the tube was literally a rivet. He had taken a picture of it pushed through but he hadnt cut the top of the rivet off yet. Point is, you can pretty much use anything, but you'd better make sure its strong enough to handle something grabbing on to it tightly and not breaking over time (whatever I use, I wont weld any part of the 'wire' in place. I will run it long through the hole and 'bend the ends down. This way, WHEN it eventually breaks from wear, I can just slide another one in, bend the new ends down, and then close the hood and attach the pins). Here is a basic picture of what I'm trying to say:



Ok...now one other thing. If you look close at the top of the 'rounded' piece, I actually cut it and bended the edges out slightly. The guy that came up with this (his name is pascal on another site and he is a professional body guy/painter) said if he ever made another set of these he would ream out the top slightly so its easier to locate the hood pins into the shaft to get it locked into position. I will definately do this.

Now your done. He cleaned them all up and painted them black to blend in with the car. He attached them on the top of the radiator bracket with their exact locations being determined by the pins/hood location when the hood was lowered into place. Obviously, every hood is slightly different so there is no 'absolute' spot. I know my hood seems slightly 'shorter' so I will put mine on the same radiator bracket, but I will have to cut into the 'boxed' part of the beam so I can slide the new bracket back a bit further so it can attach.

Here is a picture of my hood with the correct pins, BUT NOT THE BRACKET. I'm posting this to help show what I mean by deciding how you want the pins to line up. Mine do NOT line up with the fender/hood gap. When I do fab this bracket up, I will make sure to change the locking position so they do. If you look close you can see mine in locked position...and two different ones at that. One is around a 10/4 position and the other is 2/8. It would/will look much better if they match and (IMO) are parallel to the hood/fender gap:






I hope this helps. If I can ever get ahold of the actual pictures I'll post them up immediately. Sorry about the crudeness of the pics, but its about the only way I could think of explaining without it being totally confusing. Here is a link to the original thread....at least you can read his explaination (though the pics did most of the describing) and ask him if needed. He's extremely helpful and a really nice guy. http://mustangforums.com/forum/s197-...enom-hood.html


Andretti

 

Wow you are awesome , good explanation , and really good mock ups . Afet I have seen them I am sure I can make them . To bad you dont live in Colorado , we could be making those and selling then . (lol) Could you hook me up with where you bought your hood pins , and once they are in the hood , what keeps them from falling out ? Stupid question I know , but i dont want them coming out after I open the hood .