Bonnet catches

Bonnet Catches - another subject I probably spent far too long thinking about!.

The demo car from Sylva uses some springs on the inside of body work. I liked this idea as they are well concealed........however, when I got the body work lined up, I felt there was a little bit too much 'spring' in the fibreglass to be held by a spring alone. I figured a more secure and direct method may keep the shut lines a little neater. There are plenty of catches around, but of course, IVA is something you must consider, so this meant only a few were actually suitable for the job. I ended going with the 'aerocatch' TYPE arrangement. I say the aerocatch TYPE as my first effort was purchased from China (they looked the same!). these turned out to be aerocatch copies and surprise, surprise...broke after 5 mins (that's £18 down the drain). Lesson learnt, correct and proper Aerocatches promptly ordered....

Drilling the hole was simple enough. The catches come with a template. so it's a matter of  marking the position, drilingl two holes with a holesaw (one 44mm, the other 25mm), then cut the bit out in the middle, a bit of fileing and sanding and you're there.....Note: as with all things fiberglass, it helps to mask the area first  and use a higher drill speed. 

.........and fitted. you can see the square cut out in the front clam, this forms two functions a). allows the red anodised pin free entry to the catch, and b). I wasn't happy with the pin going direct into the fibreglass, so strengthened it with some ally on the top and bottom.

The nice thing about the aerocatches is you can set them up so you need to push down on the bonnet with a fair amount of pressure to locate the pin, this in turn keeps the shut lines looking good. They are also very tactile and have a pleasing action (ok, this is getting a bit weird now!).

The alignment work is by no means finished, and the body work needs to come back off to finish the wiring. Other things to do include reinforcing the area where the clam is attached to the pivots.

Another success story was the holes for the front lights. Common practise is to chain drill (the hole is approx 125mm dia), but I hate chain drilling (not sure why). I purchased (for £2.99) a hole cutter from ebay. this was the type with the two outriggers with a cutting blade at each end. The items are recommended for use in a pillar drill, but I figured I could get this to work with a steady hand and my mains powered drill. It was admittedly very scarey, if something goes wrong you could trash the clam. However, it didn't go wrong and I was left with two well finished holes of the correct size....Will try and post some pics of this later.