BCBroncos Hoodshocks Install
This kit was purchased from BC Broncos.
When I bought this kit, I was worried that I would not be able to use the kit. The kit I bought was for the stock metal Bronco hood. I was installing this on a Kentrol Fiberglass hood.
The first thing I did was to examine my fiberglass and see if any of the markings were just like the origional metal bodies. The kit says to put the lower shock mount at a specific hole on the fender. Well, it turned out that there were markings for those holes, so I was able to put the lower bracket in the correct position. I'm now half done.
The other half was getting the hood mounts on and in the right spot. This was acually a lot easier than I thought. In the stock hood, there is an oval hole in the rib that runs from the front to the back of the hood. The directions from Chuck use this hole as a locator for mounting the bracket. Well, on my Kentrol hood, there also is this rib that runs from the front to the rear of the hood, and has a slight dip in the fiberglass where the oval would be. What I ended up doing was measuring where I thought the bracket was to go, and mounted it there. Only after did I find out that I ended up putting the bracket exactly where the directions wanted me to. I was very prowd of myself after that. But, what seems to be the subject of much discussion right now is how to acually mount that bracket to the hood. I had some scrap 'glass laying around so I was able to take a drill, drill a pilot hole, and test the screwing of the screw into fiberglass. It turned out that it could be easily and safely done. So I drilled my hood, inserted the screws, mounted the shocks, and tested it. Well, the hood closed nicely, though with some force to compress those shocks. That fiberglass hood is a little lighter than the metal, though not much. The suprise came when I opened the hood. I lifted the front of the hood about 6" and then all of a sudden, whoosh! I about had my jaw resting next to my eyeballs. Once those shocks took over, that hood was up in about .246 sec. I was afraid at first that with such the force that it opened it would end up tearing those screws out of the 'glas in the hood, but after a year of opening and closing, those screws are still tight and my hood is still staying open. My only complaint is that with my 3.5" suspension lift and 3" body lift, and those shocks holding the hood WAY up there, I can't reach the front of it anymore to close it. But that's not really a problem so I won't really complain too much.
Here are the pics I snapped after I was done. I apoligize for the quality, or lack thereof, but I have a new camera now.
Depending on the size of your browser, this may not be exactly accurate. The first pic (left) shows the mounting of both the top and bottom brackets. The next pic (middle) is a basic shot of the left side once finished. The last pic (right) is of the right side.
If you have any questions regarding this set-up or my installation, please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].
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