I purchased a 400 hood from D&R Classic and I think the hood may have been made incorrectly. When I try to close the hood it hits solid on the latch mechanism after investigating I find it is made differently then the old 350 hood. The cutout on the old hood is on an angle the new hood it is perpendicular with the frame. When closing the old hood the latch first strikes the driver side since the cutout is on an angle it allows the catch to catch inside the cutout. ON the new hood they both hit at the same time. I was wondering if anyone else has purchased a new hood and experienced my dilemma and if so how did you correct it.
I found a picture on ebay of 67 hood looks like the hood is the same as my after market hood now the question is can I go a 67 latch and what do I lose by going with a 67
Bjorn may be right. If you can post the pics from your Kodak account to Photobucket we could get a better idea. To view your Kodak account you have to 'join', and it won't accept an e-mail address from @yahoo.com or @lycos.com as a valid e-mail address. I'm not giving out my personal mail address out any more due to the flood of spam I've received. So all requests for an address go to server accounts like yahoo. They can deal with spam better.
Thanks Keith! Do you have any pics of the latch assembly? The difference I see is the depth of the catch on your old hood is deeper than the new hood. Both my '69's have a catch like your repop hood.
I just uploaded pictures of the latch but what I see happening is when the latch first strikes the opening it is pushed in since the passenger side is level with the drivers side it hits and will not allow the hood to close on my original hood the driver side strikes the latch pushing it in and the other side out since the passenger sided angled up the latch can travel in clearing the opening before it comes back out.
I'm thinking you just have an alignment problem. The latch does have some adjustment room.
Give me your e-mail address and I'll send you the pages from the '69 service manual on hood latch adjustment. Posting them to Photobucket would size them down to much.
"Service Manual, we don't need no stinking Service Manual."
I though I'd never need a '69 Service Manual. But it provides a wealth of info on the proper way to repair things. A must have IMO.
I have the service manual it is obvious to see the problem I guess I am not discribing it properly one more try.
When the latch contacts the hood it first hits on the drivers side. This pushes the latch inward and comes out on the passenger side. Now the 69 hood latch opening is on an angle it is further away from the latch on the passenger side so there is not interference. The latch goes into the hole in the hood and the latch is sticking out on the driver’s side and now the hood can continue down to the last latch. Since the hole in my hood is not angled when the latch strikes on the drivers side it pushed the latch out on the passenger side it not comes in contact with the hood and will not allow it to close.
Perhaps anyone could post a pic of a 67 hood latch assembly? I suppose Keith is talking about his 69 Bird. His hood latch assembly looks identical to my 68 set-up so obviously the 67 latch must be different. His 69 (?) hood catch also shows the same steep angle as the one of my current 68 350 hood so it seems that D&R is selling a 67 400 hood repop??
this link is of high value! Thanks for posting it. So now I know how these different hood latch assemblies look like. And I know that GM has changed the angle of the hood catch from year 67 to year 68, then being much steeper. However, when the mechanism of the two different latch assemblies is compared one to another I still get the impression that the highs of the safety and main latches are equal on both assemblies. So why does the flat recepticle of the 67-style-400 hood hit the 68/69 latch assembly? Or the other way round: would it be sufficient to weld-in an steeper angle on the 67 recepticle´s driver side (or to hammer down the passenger´s side) to get it working with the 68 latch?
Thanks Jim for the link. I now see that the 67 latch has an off set giving a extra 1/4" travel before it hit when activated. I am thinking I may be able just cut passenger side down to get the clearance doing this I will have to pull the release an extra time to clear the safety latch.
Keith, read section 11 page 2 through 5 before you cut anything. I say it's in need of adjustment. I owned a car where the secondary (safety) catch was altered and later had the hood fly open, bend it back smashing the wind shield. I wouldn't want that to happen anyone. It makes smelly soiled pants.
I just posted this on the list serve less than an hour ago:
'67 does have a safety catch, but it can fail if the catch spring fails or if it sticks. I believe the '68-69 latch and hood catch work together to mechanically force the safety catch closed if the hood pops off the primary latch. Perhaps there is something wrong with your '67 latch or perhaps it's not adjusted well enough. I would definitely take a look at it.
D&R Classic has offered to asssit in correcting the problem here is a copy of their response
Kieth
Thanks for the email. I talked to some other guys in the office and they said that you may be able to adjust the hood latch on your car to fit that style hood striker on the hood. If that does not work, we should have a hood latch available (may be used) that you can use. Let me know what you would like to do and I would be glad to help. I would appreciate any positive feedback you can post for us on the forum site that you linked us to. Thanks again.
I modified my latch and now the hood works . What I did was cut off a piece of the safety latch. When you push the safety latch in it comes out above the main latch I cut off what sticks out above the main latch. The only time this sticks out is when it comes in contact with the hood opening. I cannot see any purpose for this so I removed enough to make the hood close. It still goes all the way down to the main latch. When I pull the release it pops open to the safety latch so that safety function still works. I do appreciate your concern and offers to remedy the problem. see link http://s241.photobucket.com/albums/ff166/orangefirebird/?action=view¤t=67-68latch.jpg
Speaking from first hand experience the hoods that D&R are selling are 67's. I showed pictures of the hood I own 2 69 Firebirds and owned a 68 Firebird I think I know what I am talking about.
Based on your description of the hood portion of the latching mechanisms..the angled hole in the hood is correct for 67 only. Straight hole is 68-69. They require different latches to function properly..with not modifications. Current repro hoods fit 67-69, but require the 68-69 latch due to the "straight" hole in the new hood.
Here´s my supposed-to-be 68 350 hood with steep angled hood catch - same as Keith´s 69 350 hood catch:
And here´s my supposed-to-be 68 hood latch assembly right after zink plating. Same as Keith´s 69 hood latch assembly...
I wrote "supposed-to-be" because I know as a fact that the original 68 400 hood had been swapped for whatever reason for a stock 350 model´s hood (at least according to the PHS it should have been a 400 cci car). But what do I know about the first 30 years of my car´s history...? Could be that there had been an accident because the bumper was swapped, too. Only the radiator support seemed to be still original albeit rusted through, so I assume that at least the hood catch assembly is stock, too.
Keith, would you please post some pics of your altered 69 hood latch assembly? As far as I understood it now works well with your 67-style-repop hood from D&R...
Sorry Keith..I have it backwards..67 straight..68-69 angled...sorry Do you know who manufactures the D&R hood?
Yes, I was going to say that...my 68,69 hood has angled latch...I was lucky 6 yrs ago ,I just bought a "400 hood", for my 69, didnt know at the time there was a 67 latch...but lucked out..
Let me clarify, Legion does not make this hood. They sell this hood because it is open market and put it in their packaging. We do the same. The hood is the same hood. We actually own the tooling and made this item about 6 years ago. That is why the quality is so good. Through other mfr deals, we traded a partial share to open the market on this hood, in return we acquired the rights to another good item in the market also. Probably way more information than you wanted to know, huh? Steve
I though I'd never need a '69 Service Manual. But it provides a wealth of info on the proper way to repair things. A must have IMO.
