After spending the past week or so working on my truck (fixing every leak imaginable caused by that accident, fuel, oil and coolant, if I had washer fluid on the truck it be leaking too), I've noticed it's kinda a pain when it's as tall as mine. Usually I'm standing on the bumper or even kneeling inside to get to what I'm working on. There is a lot of room, but it's a bit 'crawling up to get down in it'.

I'm starting to look again at doing a full front tilt, as the idea of having it that open and being able to sit on a tire and work seems like a fun way to go. However, from what I've read they can be a real pain to get aligned when they're down. So I'd like to hear from those who have made their truck full tilt and the problems/solutions you came across. Hopefully a couple of ingenious ideas will merge and the whole thing can be easier in the future, lol.

Pictures of solutions always a major plus.

 

A PO (2 removed) had converted my panel to a flip front end utilizing the original metal. The guy I bought it from had it converted back (thankfully it had been done primarily with bolts not welded together) because he said it was heavy, cumbersome, difficult to manage and required 2 people to open and close it. The lower part of the fenders had been cut vertically at the widest part of the cowl and the small bottom section bolted to the cowl and running boards. They had done a lot of cutting on the inner fender panels, removed the rear fender supports from the cowl, and added a pair of chrome hinges that bolted to to the wind deflector, inner fender, fender junction that pivoted on the front of the frame horns beyond the front splash pan. The hinges had been left in place to support the front after converting back, since so much had been cut away.
I guess if you either used the one piece FG doghouse (you could then save the unmolested metal parts in case you or a future owner wanted to convert it back) or a big enough set of linear actuators to open and close it, it might be better.

 

Yeah that sounds like more trouble than it could be worth. I've thought about a tilt hood, but that limits working on it only to the sides and doesn't really help me any. So it looks like the normal opening way is what I'll end up going with. The idea is to make things easier, not harder, lol.

Thanks for the reply.

 

stephen,

first... I don't know who makes tilt doghouses anymore since Fairlane went down... but then I'm not shopping.

second... the idea of all that room is somewhat misleading. the hood only goes up at about 45 °. because the lower grill cross piece hits the frame rails... (BTW consider the bumper and how that's gonna work) If you cut at the lower part of the fender, it's all in the way...If you cut at the body line and attach the lower fender to the cab... there is some twisting and ducking to get in there to sit on the tire.. but once there.. it's reasonably easy to reach the sides... the front is another matter. You can't reach the front of the radiator any better than with sheet metal in place...

third... the fitment will drive you crazy... if the hinge/tilt aren't really tight with no slop the hood comes down a little differently each time... which may or may not align with the lower fenders...(that's why you see alignment pins on every tilt you see) the original shape of the hood from the factory is 'close ' to the shape of the cab... but not that close... so there is some serious massaging that has to be done... the cowl edge of the hood has be thinned... and the factory bracing may or may not hold the hood where it should be... which might necessitate cutting it loose to reshape. I'm still trying to find a way to get the hood to fit the cowl area correctly... then hold the whole thing in place and come up with a unobtrusive bracing/strengthening/stabilizing hicky thing that you can install with the hood down and you in the engine compartment glassing it in. I'm considering laying a 1/8 foam tape on the cowl meeting edge... lowering the hood and screwing it to the cowl... then getting inside and fabbing a rod or stick or conduit or something the the proper shape and glassing it in place... let it sit a couple of days then set it free... of course... if you have an engine in the way you can forget that exercise...

I'm not trying to persuade you against it... just some points to consider... along with the usual hinge apparatus, lifting mechanism, wiring, latching, new radiator supports...and all the body work that would go with rubbing all the Cootie Bob off if it...

have fun...

john

 

I didn't have a problem making my flip hood and I didn't,t have cut the frame. I used a hinge of a freightliner truck , all trucks with flip hood have guide pins. It sure makes working on the motor so much easy. I can open it with one arm...:-)

 

I'm going full tilt on mine. Laying over a huge fender trying to reach the engine while standing on a stack of something is not my idea of fun. This might not be much of an issue on some slammed/lowered 2wd truck but on a big truck or a 4x4 like mine it is. I would much rather tilt the whole front clip forward out of the way.

I'm using the stock steel body panels. And am going to bolt them together. That way if I ever damage any panels I can just unbolt the panel and replace it. The weight isn't an issue for me I can easily lift and carry the entire front clip by myself. So tilting it forward will be a piece of cake. But if I'm feeling lazy I can always add either some gas struts from a hatchback or some convertible top hydraulic rams.

I am making a one piece air deflector out of some 10 Gauge steel. This will give a solid base to mount my hinges off from. And there won't be any chance of cracking sheetmetal. It will also make the whole clip much less wobbly.

I'm killing two birds with one stone for the guide pins to close the front clip. I'm going with a locking hood pin set up called "AeroCatch". It's a flush mount hood pin set up. The pins will help guide the clip in place and they are lockable so I can keep my under hood parts from growing legs and walking away.

I'm still undecided on the lower rear fender sections. I'm either just going to cut the lower rear section of the fender off where it starts to curve in on the cab. And just attach the cutoff piece to the running boards. Like in the pic below.








Or I'll cut the fenders diagonally where the fender starts to curve down. Like shown in the picture below.








Going tilt one piece may be some work. But it's well worth it to make it so much easier to do anything under the hood.

 

I was thinking if I used a hinge with a longer arm (pivot point more out towards the bumper) that I could avoid a lot of clearance issues, it would make it a little harder to open but there are ways around that. It could also allow it to open up more as it would swing over anything it normally hits. Would need some sort of stopper though. I'll draw up a few things with this idea, but hard to convey without visuals.

I like the idea of using what's on there and bolting it together. I see it as a way that would make any repairs or even reversing the whole thing much easier. Welding it just seems like you would be asking for it if it ever got damaged.

I think a trunk latch could also be a very good idea, you could use it to 'pop' it from inside and hold it secure. Maybe I can figure out a way to have it so the hood can open normally, as well as the full tilt. It would require some serious bracing and need a subframe though, that's for sure.

I'm still not sure on where would be best to cut the fenders, there is a third option that I can see of cutting it on the running board side, removing the curved lip part that goes under the cab. Course it would need a fair amount of support.

I think I might play around with this idea some more and maybe work on a sub-frame. Right now I can't have parts off for too long, so I'd need to build everything to be installed mighty quick... ah the fun of having no real place to work, lol.

Course a whole lot of this will be effected if I want to have a grille guard or not (still haven't come up with a design that I like enough)

Thanks for the input

 

These are the hinges I bought for mine. I'm going to modify them slightly but overall the design is good. They are a fairly long arm. So they provide a good amount of lift too while the front clip tilts forward. They bolt to the inner fenders and air deflectors. They will also act as the limiter. I'm going to have them so the rest right against the front bumper.



The problem with a single latch set up is there will be more rocking/movement allowed by the latch. I thought about some kind of latch. But I decided on the AeroCatch for it's simplicity. But they still will allow me to lock the front clip closed.

The biggest deal I see with converting to a tilt front clip is you will need to fabricate a new radiator mount. And you will have to modify the wiring on the front clip. Otherwise it's pretty straight forward.

 

I really like the vertical fender cut like was done on mine. I actually didn't know it had been cut until I was taking the front end apart. To understand the line, remove the running board for room, use a plumb bob and bring it over until it just touches the highest point of the side of the cowl. Now trace the string down the fender to the bottom. The cut will remove the bottom of the fender where it turns under the cowl.
You can see the cut off piece still bolted to the cowl and running board in this pic.

If you bolt or weld the metal parts together don't forget to add spacers to retain the panel gaps or it will come out too small.
I still have the chrome hinges that were on mine if anyone is interested in them. My hinges are like Fordman's above, the clip will clear the bumper.
You don't have to do anything with the radiator support, except unbolt the latch plate cross piece and air deflectors from it, it stays in place, You also don't need to stiffen or strengthen the deflectors with these hinges, the way all the panels come together where the hinges bolt on it's plenty strong.

 

The vertical cut is a good way to go. But the F600 fenders do hang down a lot farther then F100 fenders do. So he will still need to do a horizontal cut around the running board area too.

I'm making my one piece air deflector because mine is a 4x4. So it might see some off road use. Hell it might even see some air time. So it will get bounced around a lot more then some one just driving a F100 on the street. I'd rather over build it up front then have to deal with repairs down the road.

 

I did a full tilt front on a customers truck a few years ago. It was a Fairlane unit and I made a hinge that picked the front up and over the front bumper and was counterbalanced with gas pistons. Worked really well but The full length fender was a PITA to stoop under. Access to the radiator and front of the engine was slightly better than the front flip kits common to these trucks.

I personally wouldn't go through the trouble to do this, however I do have most of the parts on file and would be willing to produce more if there was any interest.

 

Problem I see with the Fairlane 1 pc, is no inner fenders, so the wheels will throw stuff all over the engine. My question is how often are you going to want to work on the engine where the fenders would be a problem? If I need to get in there that much, I climb into the engine bay and sit on the fender.

 

I was going to use what IH use on there 4400 truck on steel bar on each side with a rubber on each. You pull 1 pln and lift the bar with the rubber inter fender out..

 

Hmm, seems for what I need I would have to think up a new hinge, maybe manage to get the tilt out a lot farther.

How far does the hood normally supposed to open? Mine only opens about 40 degrees, I can work under it but I can't sit on the fender.

 

to get it out farther you'd need to extend the pivot out beyond the frame horn end or design a compound hinge. The farther out you go the heavier the clip becomes. Julie has a pretty nice linear actuator setup on her/his pickup. I don't know if his/her posts have been deleted? One more thing I'd be concerned about is the clip being caught by the wind while open, that's a big sail! One way to solve the alignment issue would be to build a 3/4" square crossbraced subframe structure for the clip. Hinge the subframe and just hang the sheetmetal on it.