Dax Bonnet Mounting

[dave]

Hi Pete.
I would elongate the holes in the part that attaches to the bonnet itself.
Reason:
If the car is as yet unpainted, when you fit the bonnety after paint you will first do this without the gas rams , and if the bonnet should inadvertently close it will catch on the nose of the car damaging the paint. The same will happen if at somepoint in the futore the gas rams wear out and lose their pressure (It does happen sometimes).
If you have elongated holes under the inner wings it will be difficult to address this issue. But if the elongated holes are in the part where it mounts to the bonnet this can be adjusted much easier.

HowI do them:
Flip the bonnet over.
Grindsand the underside of the leading edge of the bonnet to a taper (Pointy forward edge to redice the risk of the bonnet catching the nose of the car when opening/closing)
Place the hinge on the bonnet so that the mounting plates are as far forward as possible but still fully on their mountin pad.
Mark through the holes.
drill the holes out 5mm.
Tap these holes with an M6 tap.
Fit the hinge to the bonnet usint M6 pins and washers.
As the holes in the hinge are oversize, pull the hinge as far forward as it will go and tighten. (This will give you the adjustment you will need later)
Assemble the rest of the hinge and fit bonnet into its opening.
pull the pivot tubes out towards the inner wings, putting slight forward pressure on them.
Mark and drill the inner wings.
Bolt the hinge in place.
Check bonnet for operation.
All should be fine at this point.
Fit gas rams (This will now push the bonnet backwards taking up any slack and putting the hoop part of the hinge under some pre tension).
As the hinge was mounted to the bonnet and was pulled forward, this has now left you enough room (As the holes are oversize) to re adjust the bonnet forward by a few "mm".

However, if your bonnet has 8mm tapped holes in it (As suggested in the Dax build manual) you will not have enough slack in the holes to correct the bonnet's position. Hence me suggestint that you open up these holes to give yourself thet extra room.

Have fun.

[Geezer]

Hi Dave

Thanks for your reply, especially with such explicit detail.

I didn't see your reply until I had already elongated the holes in the inner wing. However, I am pleased with the result which works perfectly for a car that had already had the Bonnet mounting holes drilled. Elongating the holes in the bonnet mounting plate, for the amount I needed, would have started bring the corners into play. I liked your idea of chamfering off the underside of the Bonnet leading edge having come to the same conclusion myself - particularly as the is car is unpainted. It's a shame that, at the end of the day, we are talking about a poor design in the frirst place - perhaps you could come up with some advice to Dax?

All new builds should certainly heed your advice.

Thanks again...
Thanks again