successful transplant

[human <human@nh.ultranet.com>]

-- [ From: human * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

I have to boast somewhere don't I?

project: cure the disappointment of not having a gas charged strut for my
Coupe GT's hood.

Something I got really used to with my 5000's was the hood staying open by
itself.  So when I got a junk 5000T for fantasies about suspension changes,
I noticed greedily that it had a working hood strut.

Last week I finally got started.  removed the strut itself (easy - 2
circlips) and pur it aside to paint (garish yellow - no stealth under the
hood!) and drilled out the welds holding the top bracket in place.  got
confused and decided just to tear the bottom bracket out with a crow bar. 
worked, but why so brutal?

First I supported the hood with a 2x4, as the manual prop would have been in
my way.  Handily enough I had an old broken hood strut on another junker,
which I could use as a template since it can be compressed with no effort. 
I attached the two brackets to the hood and the strut tower with superglue
type foam mounting tape andmade sure I had clearance of metal parts while
closing the hood.  then I drove a self tapping screw into one of the old
weld holes in the top bracket, removed it, removed the tape top and bottom
and reassembled it with two screws in the top and one holding the bottom. 
It's important that the arc of motion of each pivot be in the same plane or
nasty things would happen upon closing hood.

Now I could tweak the usage of space under the hood.  First, the windsheild
washer reservoir was in the way.  By spreading the brackets slightly I was
able to lower its rest postion by an inch without impairing function.  The
next was to cut away part of the plastic air guide at the radiator top. 
Having cleared the path I was ready to put in the rest of the screws (4 top
and bottom total) and install the good gas strut.  Oooh-wheee.  It's nice
having a hood that opens itself from the 10" open or so position like the
old days.

Thursday I'll go next door and add a couple of welds to each bracket for
long term security and hit them with some zinc based paint.  The only
remaining task is to fabricate a replacement for the part of the air guide
that I cut away.  A concave up channel should be easy enough to come up with
and pop rivet to the air guide.

Once in a while it's nice to bite off something you can actually chew!

human
82 coupe gt

now for the headlights...