Hood rear corners no longer shaking when driving

[ronmanfredi]

Our 2006 Avanti like others, have had a problem with the rear corners moving/vibrating when hitting bumps.  Adjusting the hood helps some, but doesn’t fix it.  Some owners have added hood pins which go through the hood or installed a latch on each corner similar to the original Avanti had. As we were traveling to the AOAI meet this year as a passenger, I could see the corner bouncing around at times and it hit me; why don’t I figure out a way to have a magnetic latch to each side?  The electro-magnet would turn on when the engine was running and off when parked.

Once back home, I started doing research on electro magnets and found a company called APW Company who makes all kinds of permanent and electro magnets, so I ordered two EM100-12-122 1 ½” wide electro-magnets and two matching plates.  The magnet have a rating of about 70 pounds which means it takes 70 pounds of pressure to remove the plates from the magnet.  Next was to decide where and how to mount them.  I decided to mount the magnets next to the outer hood stops using a thick aluminum bracket that attaches to the hood stop threaded shaft.  The brackets will need some twisting and bending to meet the plates on the hood correctly.  (the hood is not parallel to the hood stops so the bracket has to be bent so there is full contact between the magnet and plate).  To wire the magnets up, I placed the ground lead on the screw that holds the magnet to the bracket, which is grounded to the metal inner fender.  For power, I went to the harness close to the ignition switch and tapped into the white wire with a yellow tracer.  I placed a 5 amp fuse inline with the power wire.  The electro-magnets draw about .4 amps each, so 2 of them would be under a 1 amp draw.

We then went to a car show, which was a 4 hour round trip and no matter what kind of bump in the road, the hood corners never moved at all.  The problem was now fixed!

One of the other issues with the hood latching is flex in the hood latch firewall section and as you continue to tighten down the hood, you are actually pulling the hood down in the middle.  With the 2 pieces of plastic trim under the wiper arms removed, you can grab that firewall piece of metal and move it back and forth with little effort. To correct this, I took a piece of aluminum metal and added a brace, which eliminated any flexing of the latch firewall. (picture 3) Lastly, I had already placed a hood stop close to the latch to hold the hood firmly in place when latched.  (picture 4).  The process I would use to do this again is to install the brace, install the hood stop, adjust the hood latch and stops and then install the magnets.  For our car, the latch brace, corner stop adjustments and electro magnets have eliminated all hood movement issues.

[mfg]

The folding wheelchair ramps on city transit busses are secured in the same fashion.

(See Gillig bus video)