Front hood opened at speed

[philjohnson911]

I foolishly left my front hood (bonnet) on the latch and proceeded to drive off - result : hood opened right back to the windscreen, denting bonnet and cowling (the piece in fron of the windscreen). Also created the brown pants effect.

1) Has anyone else let this happen (please. . I feel such an fool . . I need to share it)
2) How easy is it to replace the cowling bit?


Phil

[maf 914]

I once failed to press the front lid down completely and drove around with it held only by the release latch. Luckily the latch held in my case. It made me feel real smart!

Mike

[Joe Ricard]

Getting the cowling straight is goning to be a challange. I would guess you have to take off the blower motor. which means you need to remove the gas tank (hope it is not full). then take the car to a body man and pound, bend, what ever to fix it up.
Hey good excuse to get one of them carbon fiber hoods

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Its not that uncommon... I know more than one or two 914s that have some Bondo at the sides of the cowl and front lids that dont quite match the rest of the car. In some cases, new windshields were needed--it sounds like thats not the case with you, which is lucky. I mean, smart--you were smart enough to avoid that!!

A good body shop (if you can find one, grrrr....) is your best resource here. They can tell you what it will cost to repair your front hood (if you can get a used one locally that isnt rusty it will probably be cheaper to do that than repair the old one) and to fix the cowl.

--DD

[madd_dogg_914]

I rear ended a truck (honest it wasn't my fault officer, I wasn't speeding at all)

The front hood stayed latched and I couldn't get it un-done. I was still almost full on gas so I figured I would deal with it later. Driving along surface streets the next day, WHAM!!!

Luckily I was close to home. I drove home reall slow with my head out the window so I could see. The fix is actually not that hard. All you have to do is:

1) Get the hood back down. There will be sounds of twisting metal, don't worry, there is nothing you can do about it.
2) Get the hood off, four bolts and it is done. If you are smart then you will enlist the help of one of your friends.
3)Remove the hood springs (carefully) I am a retard and do it by just grabbing the spring and pulling it off. However a pair of vise grips will most likely work better.
4) Inspect the hood pivets. If the hood actually tore through the stop plate then you will need to replace them, otherwise use a pair of your trusty vise grips to straigten the stop out (do this after you have squeezed the pivots back in.

*If you have no idea what I am talking about thus far you will as soon as you look inside the hood*

5)Go down to Kragen (or any auto paint store) and buy a dent puller. They are only like $20 and well worth it.
6) Drill a couple of small pilot holes in the cowell (close to the corners so it has more impact)
7) Insert dent puller and pull. If you go to high, simply push down the metal at this point will be pliabe because the pivots tore through the cowell.
8) Once in place use your trusty blow torch and some brazing rods (or find a buddy who welds) and attach the left and right sides back together. It is a very strong repair.
9) Grind the excess metal down. Fill holes with bondo. Your trunk lid should still be fine so reattach and you are ready to go.
10) Paint, obviously paint. But paying to have a body shop color match a cowell will run maybe $250 versus my estimate to fix and paint cowell when it happened to me $1500. I am not a professional body man, I actually sell cell phones. This was my first body attempt and it turned out fine (I will attach pictures if I can find, otherwise I will take some tonight so you can see what I am talking about. Total cost in tools (assuming you have none) will be maybe $100 and one solid Sunday afternoon.

Hope this helps. All I have is far away pictures, so I will take some closeups tonight.

-Chris
914 LOVER!!!

Whatever you do DONT SCRAP IT!!! Keep them on the road!

[Dave Bell]

Yup -

One car I have right now had be hit/repaired before I got it. Part of the result was to change the geometry of the front latch... making the safety not work and the normal latch subject to letting go... took the hood flying up the second time before I figured out the problem... first time I thought I had just left the latch undone.

Yes it can be fixed very easily by yourself or a body shop. Tap out areas that were dented in, fill in with body filler and then sand out. Did mine with the tank, blower and all hoses still in the car.

You also want to check the corners of the hood. When it flys back and digs into the cowl, it has a tendency to slightly bend back the corners of the hood so when re-fit these corners may come up above the matching line on the fender... and yes these can be bent back down as well.... with some effort.... and again any residual crinkle can be smoothed out with body filler.

.... worked for me.

[ein 6er]

yuuuuuuuuuuup, me too!! (head down, tail between legs)

i had a rusty 74 2.0 with a fresh engine rebuild. the hood was rusted along the underside edge. i was going about 55 (or 70) over one of the highrise bridges here, into a strong gusty 25 mph wind ....... the lid whipped up soooooooo fast and hard .... smashed the windshield out .... glass alllllllover me. got it stopped, took the hood off, left it on the side of the bridge, (came back and got it, not that is was any good), i only had to drive about 4 miles to get home. that was the beginning of the end for it, eventually stripped it for parts. )-:

doug

[Dave Bell]

Even though I fixed the latch geometry and my safety latch now works... I went ahead and added the insurance of an extra chain safety. See photos below.... (ignore the modified bolt hole locations on the latch... that was done to fix the geometry problem.)

The latch or normal safety will probably never fail again... but once a lid has flown up in your face... it makes you not want to have it happen again. Clip at at the end of the chain easily unhooks to get into the trunk.

- Dave

[sammyg2]

That happened to me in an old Datsun pick up about a zillion years ago. Definitely gets you attention.

Look at the bright side, at least your targa top didn't fly off at speed :-)
[inside joke/]

[Brad Roberts]

Check this out.

I'm crewing for a SCCA GT3 914 in Memphis Tenn back in 1993.

The driver is leading the race and about to win GT3. He crosses the finish line just as the hood flips up. It goes up and over the windshield and hits him in the helmet knocking him out. We had decided to not run the top for that particular race.

So.. he crosses the line and promptly plants it in the wall after being knocked out.

Bad day.

B

[Ron Meier]

ALL of our race cars had hood pins - to hell with the latch assembly.

[Brad Roberts]

I hear you (I dont even have a hood)

What happened was.. the actuall pins came loose which caused the spring loaded lock pins to vibrate out.

It was his fault for not checking them every once in awhile.

B

[Ron Meier]

I understand - them damn drivers never check anything.

And then there's the case where I sent a car out and had forgotten to torque the lug nuts on one wheel. I told the driver the vibration was to keep him awake. I can't type his reply. Hell, he only made two laps at Riverside before he noticed it.