how can i lock my hood? i have a lot of money invested in my motor and would like to have peace of mind in my crappy neighborhood, is there anything i can do that wont be unsightly. i do not want to use the locking hood pins. pics would be great! thanks
you could cable it, I had a friend who did that, ran a cable around his bumper support and through the hood latch, like an aircraft steel locking cable. Not the prettiest, but it worked.
I bolted a chain to my hood latch support. Just using one of the support bolts... Then when the hood closes, you just guide the chain down in front of the radiator. I would just run the chain around the bottom of the lower support and lock it. You could see the chain behind the grille and bumper... but it did lock down the hood. If someone was determined, they would just cut it off. Dave
Yeah, you could install a release cable from a newer car... I just had a thought: How about those electric tailgate locks they make for trucks? You could even just get the electric plunger motor from a power lock car. Use it to enable/disable the hood latch. Dave
I think some kind of cable release would be pretty easy to fab up. Just make sure its inaccessable through the grill.
look on a 4x4 site, jeep guys can get a remote cable lock that mounts under their dash board and uses a special key, I forget what it's called, but should work just the same on our cars
You think adding the cable operated hood release would be easy. It's not as easy as it should be. I'm using the granada type which is the same as the fox bodies. The problem is the maverick latch is on the hood and the cable operated stuff is on the radiator support. There is bearly enough room on the hood for the latch to work plus you have to stiffen up that portion of the hood. I also had to beef up the radiator support because it's not made for the force of the latch release spring. With out the stiffner either the hood wouldn't latch or it wouldn't release. It's on there and works great but, I still have to work the secondary latch. The other problem I had was the custom grill I made doesn't give me alot of room in that area.
Couldn't you just make an in the cab hood opener like modern cars? And design it so that no one can crack it open from the outside? Just a suggestion Jason
My simple solution On my 67 Mustang I drilled a small hole in the hood latch handle, and attached a very short piece of chain to the radiator support right below it (at the latching area) by replacing an existing bolt with a longer bolt and self locking nut combo. The self locking nut cannot be accesed from the outside so the bolt cannot simply be unscrewed like the original. Pass a small/medium key lock through the end of the chain and the hole in the latch handle. The assembly is neatly hidden, and does not bang anything up while the car is driven. The hood may be opened a little, but not much. I have not checked, but the same setup may work on the Maverick.
