Hood, hinges, struts and indecision.

Lining up the hood

I had this idea of having the pivot point for the hood at the very back edge, using these hinges with one arm longer than the other.  You can’t see it very well in this image.  The hinges were duty, non-disassemble-able, so bolted one end to the main frame, and welded the long arms to the hood frame.

Closed hood

Used vise-grips to mock up some strut positions.  This is using the gas-strut I had lying around from a Honda Civic Hatchback.  trying to find an ideal position to support the hood when open ( with all the eventual weight ) and have decent feel while opening/closing.

Open hood

This shows strut holding hood in the eventual open position.  Looks good … nope.  I boxed in the hood at the point where the shock would be mounted, rigged it up again, and it just wasn’t right.  First; the strut wasn’t going to be strong enough, and this mounting position meant the initial opening was difficult, middle part of motion was smooth, and fully open it probably wouldn’t support the full weight.  Another issue was the hinges were flexing.  I fully welded the hinges to the hood frame as I thought that would solve things, but nope.  So off it came.  Went to the wrecker, picked up a matching set of gas struts off of a Mazda MPV minivan rear door ( much more pressure, little less travel ).  Went to Home Depot and got some standard door hinges.  Cut and ground off the old hinges, tried some mockups, and tacked on the new hinges of which there are now 5 in total, rather than 3 before.  When mocked up the hood no longer flexes under the pressure of the gas strut.  However, will need to be creative when it comes to covering everything with wood.  The hinge ensures there will be some sort of gap in the top wood piece.

New hinges and strut

Need to grind a small notch in the frame to clear the strut when the hood is closed, otherwise this part is getting closer to completion.