[venomous]

Some people were interested in seeing pictures of my new hood hinge kit. It's still in development, but here's a preview picture:

You can check out some more pics and info on my website listed below.

[ August 17, 2002, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Venomous ]

 

[Aaron Silidker]

Duane, if the pirce is not exhorbitant and it will be out soon(before dave rhia's hinge from FFR), put me down for one. Why not make the mounting points wider for stability and without the hoop, is there strength issues with the fiberglass?

 

[venomous]

I'm considering widening the hinges. The geometry is good where they're now at, which is significantly wider than the existing FFR hinges. I'll see how steady she is in a week or two.

No problems with the strength issue. Note that without the hood hinge option, you do not put a hoop around the hood for strength (IE using pins). The hoop is not needed for strength.

I'll post again to let you know when they're ready. Likely in two weeks now.

 

[Aaron Silidker]

Duane, just a warning, I spoke with my painter about eliminating the hoop and he said absolutely do not. At the least put just the thin front part on. He said that over time the hood can crack. How hard would it be to adapt part of the ffr hoop? What is the expected price?

Also, Dave Rhia's car has super wide mounting points and the hood cannot be twisted more than 1/2 inch when fully open. They are as far out as possible.

Since you seem to have this hinge designing thing down pat, take a look at a new VW passat trunk hinge. Might be an interesting design to pursue, very very slick looking and works AWESOME.

 

[venomous]

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the comments. I did some design work before attempting to build the hinge. One of the things I took into consideration was cracking at the hinge bracket on the hood. You don't see it but the brackets on the hood are of significant size. This is intended to distribute the stress over a larger area. I also rounded all sharp corners in order to reduce the stress raisers which propogate cracking. Finally, after bonding, I take fibreglass cloth and lay it over the entire bracket and the hood around the bracket. Then epoxy glass it. If you do not fill the bottom of the hood, you will not get cracking. If you do, with the key design implementations identified above, cosmetic cracking is highly unlikely. I could have made a steel piece across the front, but purposely did not in order to eliminate possible distortion which really can screw up the alignement of your hood with the body at the front.

I've seen a lot of slick hinges on cars. Just my humble opionion though is that I like the simpler look and operation. Hence the simple yet effective "hoop" design, and elimination of multiple linkage systems. You can't in my mind have a much easier method of installation and alignment them the method I'm using. I'm a proponent of KISS.

If anyone has any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Thanks,