Strongly considering hood latches

This sounds like a story to hear...

 

Finished..

 

lol nothing I couldn't get worked out. I didn't think about where the pin came through the latch(marked pin hole and used that to drill the front 1-3/4" hole, and traced the lower sandwich plate) and had to shift the pin in the radiator support.. The correct way is how @JimboAnz did it, drill the hole in the hood for the pin, install the pin and trace around the latch.

 

I am pretty sure that I did a write-up, but it might only be on XRU.

 

Adjusted mines a bit, working well today

https://youtu.be/-NCK-DIKJKk

 

Or you could have done it how I said in my install write up. Install the latch pin and close the hood on it push down so it put an outward ding in the hood then drill your hole saw pilot hole in the center of the ding.

 

That's what I did, installed the pin in the hole i drilled where the hood bump lands, dimpled the hood, drilled the 1-3/4 hole saw there and the Pin was off. As drilled and installed the pin hit the latch on the white dot.
Might be a difference between 05-11 hoods and 12-15.

 

Wait, wait. Look at where the latch actually is in the bottom picture! It isn't at all where the center of the larger hole saw should go. It is in fact some where *in between* where the center of the larger and smaller hole saws are suppose to go.

The dimple should be placed on the template where the latch hole is. That appears to be a different location than the center of the larger hole saw.

Either the latch design changed since @Airdog did it and when he did it the center of the larger hole and the latch actually did correspond or else his instructions were a little unclear and the dimple should be used to align the template and not actually to center the hole saw.

 

There's a template? Mine didn't come with one. I marked and drilled the 1st hole saw and then used the sandwich plate to trace out the rest of the cuts. With more attention to the project I might have caught the offset catch in the latch and corrected for it, but in the end it was easy enough to fix.

 

Full list of mostly detailed pics here in my build.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/sandman614s-expoenough-build.141353/page-70#post-17400781

 

This is absurd. Idle hands/minds looking for something to do.

 

I am at a bit of a loss as to what could have happened to off set it like that. But here is a wild ass guess....The catch pin is sitting really high (about 29 threads above the nut) in the pic where it seems you made the dimple in the hood. Just maybe the rotation of the hood closing that extra inch or 2 to meet the catch pin in its final position (only about 8 threads showing above the nut) was enough to cause that offset. Its a geometry thing...and I arnt too gooder at math. But like I said just a wild ass guess on my part.

 

Idk if that mattered too much. At normal height I had to move the pin back 1.5mm to match the hood latch location. Again it's no big deal, and it could amount to differences in 05-11 vs 12+ hood/rad support.

 

The templates are printed on the reverse side of the packaging, so they are facing inwards before you open up the plastic box.

 

Mine did not have any templates, I hope the rest do come with them. This card is all the packaging that came in mine. I see there is a link do some downloadable instructions.

 

Ha, thats what mine came with as well. I did go to website and view the template, but I just went for it at that point.

 

I would bet this is the issue. When I installed mine a couple months ago I had the same problem. I just slotted the hole for the pin and used some fender washers to distribute the load, everything worked out in the end. Setting the pin really low would help line things up better.

 

Can you still use the factory latch to secure the hood from random assholes?

 

yes

 

Then I am sold!