Fiberglass hood and hinges

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if your hood is like mine, made by some hacks at UP22 / Unlimited the structure is probably off . I had to weld tabs to extend the adjustment on my hinges.
once I did that they work great. the springs do nothing other than hold the hood open. I used a prop rod on mine after removing them.
Do you have a picture of the mod that you made for your UP22 hood? I bought one like 10 years ago and been sitting around dreading trying to align.
 
How did you drill and install the lower strut mounting point with the fender on? Not a lot of room to work in there...
 
I took the wheel off. Drilled it out then used a m8 Tap( I think it was an an m8 for the strut bolt) I put the tap in my drill and tapped it out. I had to hold the drill upside down in there. But it worked. Fine. I drilled the hole on passenger side and blew out the hole too big so I used a 6” piece of metal drilled it out for the stud hole and used self tappers to secure it. I did not post that picture because it looks like crap. But works fine. Nobody can see it.
 
Nice, where did you get the struts? I bought some off amazon and they seem really hard to push.
 
If your hood weighs 28 lb and is about four feet long, the push required to hold it up with a lever arm of four inches (1/3 of a foot) is about 12 times 28,, divide by 2 since all the weight is not at the front, divided by 2 for each strut, or 84 lb each... does that sound like it's in the ballpark?
 
I think that sounds about right. So 84 to 120 should work on a bolt on fiberglass hood. I did not know math was going to be in here. But you are correct and you are the Doctor Dr
 
Do you have a picture of the mod that you made for your UP22 hood? I bought one like 10 years ago and been sitting around dreading trying to align.

no pictures but, I welded tabs to the end of the hinges so I could slot the holes further to get the adjustment I needed.
 
Email happee_feelings@yahoo.com. He sells the correct coils for the fiberglass hoods that replace the larger coils on the stock hinges. I bought a set last year for my aar 6 pk hood and they work perfect. Was 60$ for both and shipping was included. I believe 89-93 daytona is what they are but the ones he sells are new if you wanna stay with the stock hinges.
 
I went through this process last year. I opted to go with the no springs/prop rod thing for the sake of simplicity but I've since bought some light springs from the resident forum supplier AtomicDog which are going in at some point this year...

Initially, I couldn't get the thing to sit flat no matter what I did. I spent HOURS tinkering with the adjustment bolts and even got it stuck in the closed position a few times and had to gently push the hood from underneath the car with a piece of wood to get it open. :D

Ultimately, I realized that the hood wasn't 100% true. There was a warp that wasn't apparent until it was on the car and lined up with the fenders...so my solution, elegant or not, was to get some hood pins that would give it the needed tug to have it sit level. I used Aerocatch pins but I suspect that any could be made to work.

These pics capture the difference, I think. (The first pic has Plasti-dip on the nose which has since been removed...and I also re moved the fog lights...but you get the idea)
Dart- new hood spring 2019.jpg

Dart 7-2019-4.jpg
 
Depends on where you purchase it. Mine was aar/stinger and it fit pretty well but I had to redrill the hinges in the front holes and zip the tops off some as it caused the hood to bulge along the fenders. I contacted them about that and they said as heat builds under it, it will start to set better and it did. Finally the popup spring was to stiff and i cut off 1 of the coils and ground it to flat. The rubber fender bumpers keep it aligned and looks great.
 
Depends on where you purchase it. Mine was aar/stinger and it fit pretty well but I had to redrill the hinges in the front holes and zip the tops off some as it caused the hood to bulge along the fenders. I contacted them about that and they said as heat builds under it, it will start to set better and it did. Finally the popup spring was to stiff and i cut off 1 of the coils and ground it to flat. The rubber fender bumpers keep it aligned and looks great.
Thank you for the pop up spring idea, i have been trying to figure that one out.
 
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