Was reading an older post today, and it occured to me to gather opinions on keeping our hoods from flying up. I mean OTHER than having new and/or good working order hinges, latches, etc. Let's hear from the community about EXTRA ways you have used to keep our hoods down without butchering the sheetmetal.

 

I know that there are chains that you can put on with a lock that not only prevent it from flying up, but also from theives gutting your engine. I don't have one, the system is already redundant as it is. As long as you have it latched properly it shouldn't ever open up.

 

My buddy has a 68 buick gs and he used hood pins but instead of clips he use small locks.

 

Uh huh

People slam the heavy hood down. Over time, this action causes the panel that the hood latch bolts to...to become bent.

Sooner or later the hood flies up, taking the next to worthless safety catch along with it. Have seen evidence of this occuring countless times.

When the hood flies up, the hinges stretch. Depending on how fast one is going, the hood may end up against the leading edge of the roof.

If you see the roof's drip rail bent in this location, or when the hood is closed but is higher at the rear than the cowl panel, now you now the causes.

To prevent this from ever happening to my trucks (Edit: 1965/68/71/79), I installed a plastic wrapped woven stainless steel bicycle cable using an Abus "Discus" style padlock.

The hood can be unlatched, then raised about 5 inches, which is just enough room to get your mitt in there to unlock the padlock.

Abus Discus padlocks cannot be cut, cannot be picked unless someone has the special Abus only picks necessary to do so. Replacement Abus only keys can be difficult to find.

 

Bill While some of that is good info, some is opinion. I know that you only had perfect kept trucks that never saw any real issues, but that's OK.


Keeping the hinges and latch lubed will avoid the hood fly up. I used to have the issue with the hood opening to the safety latch on my first truck until I understood what was happening. Once everything is working smoothly you can hear the latch click.

I totally agree on the slamming part, there is no need to. Bring it down easy but firmly push the front until the latch clicks. 99.9% of the time a clicked latch is gonna hold.

Those hoods that flew open, never fully latched in the first place. That click was not heard. IMHO





John

 

When I brought my 66 home, the hood was not shut properly and I pulled over and pushed it down, in this case my safety latch worked! As soon as I got home, I lubed the hinges and the latch! I may install the same setup that I had on my 66 Mustang, an after market cable operated latch for under the hood, worked fine, no one could open the hood w/o pulling the cable under the dash and hood can not fly up while driving. Did not have to butcher the old latch to mount this system!

 

I have one of the chain/lock doohickeys on my '66...works GREAT and was less than $7.00 on eBay.

 

check out the pictures on post#10 on this link

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...king-hood.html

 

Cal Custom Hood & Truck Lock-New In Package! #961: eBay Motors (item 250622614215 end time Aug-24-10 19:58:20 PDT)

This is what I bought.

 

John, I'm not basing the info I typed on my own trucks, but what I viewed in person while working the shop (back) parts counter for over 30 years.

While y'all have seen maybe a coupla dozen trucks, I've seen hundreds.

The shop counter not only passes out parts to mechanics, but to bodymen and painters as well. It was necessary to go to the body shop several times a day to view damaged vehicles, to figure out exactly what parts the estimates refered to.
The other problem was, most of the body shop employees spoke limited english, if they spoke it at all.

I disagree on the latching, and this problem existed with all 1961/79 trucks.

The problem is reversed on 1967/72's, as these trucks have the latch (which also contains the safety catch) mounted to the hood.

The striker plate the hood and safety catch attach to...is a flimsy piece of flat sheet metal, bolts the the upper grille panel.

While typing this, I remembered that Ford had a T.S.B. on the latch, replaced the 1967/68 latch with the 1969/72 latch, but didn't do squat with the flimsy striker plate.

As bad as 1961/72's were, 1973/79's were even worse as these trucks (and 78/79 Bronco's) have a T shaped latch support which bolts to the core support (two bolts above, one below).

This part is so flimsy, you can bend it with your pinky fingers. So one can just imagine what happens to it after the hood is slammed down on it countless times.

 

I personally like my child safety gun look that threads through the hood loop and around the latch support. Holds it closed and keeps people out. You can do the same with a length of steel braided plastic coated cable and a padlock with a hole in the latch support. You can reach your hand in between the grill bars to get to the lock.

 

If security is a problem and chain locking is important, you might want to take notes from some of the best engineers in security. This method is easily adapted to work on the hood. Chain and lock will work on most trucks. Chain sold by the link. Easy to follow directions. Comes with template for making holes. Same template used for hoods.

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Bill What you are saying is the part is a POS, my latch is over 40 years old and works as intended.

What I'm saying is that if you will adjust those pieces, lube the moving joints so that they work reasonably as designed, listen for the latch to click when closing, your hood will not come unlatched nor fly up.





John

 

Robert...I love that alarm...dunno where you found it...but that oughta be patented :-)

I know many have talked about the hood flying up issue...when I close mine...A, I dont slam it, B, use that cool stuff that comes out of the ground occasionally...called oil/lube...and after you close it give it a nice hard lift/tug upward to see if its gonna wanna pop open...Mine has had to be relatched a couple of times after lifting it and the primary not being fully latched.
Ive seen alot more of those asian cars and trucks with hoods that weigh a handful of pounds in alot of instances running down the freeway with the secondary being the thing holding it down and the corners flopping up and down all the while the driver being totally clueless to their potential mess in front of them.


- cs65

 

I had the problom with it flying up after a bump.
I Looked into installing a hidden hood pin but that did not turn out. I finaly just adjusted the stricker plate a bit and shazam! It has happened to pop open to the saftey twice since then. Once on some RR tracks the other was because my buddy did not shut it properly.

I do intend to install another saftey catch on it someday. Probobly somthing like Bill sugested but without a lock. People under my hood dont worry me. Poping someones hood to look is still semi OK around here. Look, dont touch though.