Does anyone know how or have instructions on how to build a hood like this? Im tired of climbing over the bumper on my mud racer. i would like to leave the fender wells on it as well, and the radiator is mounted in the bed so thats not an issue. Im not very good at cobbling stuff together like this especially in this heat.

 

well, have you thought about doing away with the hinges all together and just doing hood pins? then you could completely remove the hood and not worry about it being in your way.

 

I have to agree. On a show car/truck, a forward hood is a nice custom touch, but on a mud racer, I would be looking for fuctionality. Maybe constructing brackets to make a one piece front clip that is held on by pins sounds more practical. It would give you total access to everything.

 

Better make the hood a fiberglass one if you're doing pins. While I CAN move a stock one of these hoods around by myself - it's not fun at all. My fiberglass one is much more "one man operation" friendly

 

cant have fiberglass panels in my class. the only thing i can think of is pop riveting the hood to the fenders of course removing the stock hood hinges and using some house door hinge and cutting the radiator support on top of the frame n wellding the hinges to the support and frame. I wish id seen how the old monster trucks did it. alot of guys in my class have these but they take the inner fender out which gets mud all over the engine. id think just sawzalling the inner fender at an angle same as the outside fender would be the way to go to keep it clean.

 

On a Saab 900, after the hood latch is released and the front of the hood pops up, the hood slides forward on a pair of rails about 9-inches or so to clear the grill when the hood is opened. I can't remember how far away from the edge of the hood the hinges are but they are not terribly close to the edge. When the hood is opened, it damn near stands straight up in the air. There are no lifts or springs that I can recall - basically the weight of the hood itself keeps it open. When closing the hood, it slides backward on the rails and a pair of pins on the back edge of the hood go into a pair of holes in the firewall to keep the rear edge of the hood in place - then simply push down on the front of the hood to latch it closed.

 

Guys I beleive he is refering to making it a tilt front end, not a tilt front hood.

Pop rivits suck man. Seems like your on the right path but I don't think house door hinges will hold up either. Best bet would be to make some sort of new crossmember underneith the rad support. Some 2"x3" box tubing should be plenty strong welded between the frame rails. Not sure what would be best for hinges, best thing I can think of is the front door hinges off a full sized Jeep Cherokee or Wagoneer from the 1970's. They are pretty thick steel, easy to find @ junk yards, and can swing out 90 degrees so the front clip would go that far too. As for the hood getting attached to the fenders, I'm not so sure on that one, short of making some steel plates to bolt between them from the inside. If you still have a front bumper the grill might hit it when tilted forward. Maybey use the side latches like the smaller internationals have on their tilt fronts? Never done this before, but just throwing out some ideas. Sucks you cant just use fiberglass panels cuz I think someone already makes a one peice front end for these trucks.

 

There's a place called U.S. Body that makes all kinds of fiberglass repro parts for these trucks. They have a front end kit for different applications (tilt only comes w/ heavy duty, though).


Check out an installed one here- http://www.usbody.com/__Photo-Gallery/T-Bod-Fe-Ford/73-fe-001.htm

Personally, I think the GT500 glass noses are SICK! I was looking at one a few months ago and had the window open next to where Eddie parks. I swear I heard him drooling...or maybe it was all the collected rain water slowly dripping out of the bed...

 

Bowtie Schmowtie that is what im looking for. Another mudder that made his own hood used barn door hinges. i wont get it to work untill i move the radiator to the bed.

 

i thought you said it was in the bed?