GD 427 bonnet and bonnet locks

Bonnet

Now to the bonnet. First I filed down the edge. What a dusty job!

The ridge along the bonnet edge before filing can just be seen

Ridge filed down ready for gel coating

The bonnet was not the best GD moulding. It had nearly 30 blemishes on the surface. They are marked up with dry wipe marker pen in the photo below. Many of the circles contained multiple blemishes.  



Bonnet blemishes marked

The edges of the bonnet were gel coated twice, before rubbing down.  The blemishes only needed one coat. The bonnet was then rubbed down and compounded with Farecla G6, before re-fitting to the body and lining up. This took hours.

Bonnet locks

I had decided on locks, rather than the traditional handles to keep the lines sleek and fuss free. The hole centres were not marked up by GD, so like the demist vent positions, I got them from Keith Akerman's car! Opening the bonnet will be a challenge I face. Hadn't thought of that - I may fit a spring to lift it a little or add a scoop to lift it with! Yet to decide.

I think the fixing process would be similar for fitting the handles as the locks, but check the measurements.

The hole centres are marked up on the bonnet at 41mm from the back of the bonnet, nearest to the windscreen. They are 680mm apart - 340mm each side of the centre line. Pilot holes were drilled in the bonnet, before 20mm diameter holes were drilled in the bonnet with the step drill. Because of the thickness of the bonnet and the depth of the steps, I had to drill from both sides.


Pilot hole drilled for the bonnet locks

The lock holes were taken out with the Dremel (I used the hole cutter bit to do this) to make them 21mm square (although the corners are cut off), to take the lock bodies. The locks were disassembled and then fixed in to the holes and the locating cams re-fitted to the square bars of the locks. I orientated them so that the key slots would run front to back of the car.

Lock in place in the bonnet

The bonnet was packed up to the level of the surrounding body. The cams were then  used to locate the edge of the slots to cut in the bulkhead (from the engine compartment). The escutcheons were used to mark the extent of the holes and these were marked out (again from beneath the bonnet).  The holes were drilled and again cut out with the Dremel cutter. The fixing holes were drilled for the escutcheons. The holes were not cut to the full extent of the escutcheon slots and were slightly narrower at the fully locked position to ensure that the bonnet was at the correct height. The escutcheons were then fitted, using two long screws and nyloc nuts.

Escutcheon fixed to bulkhead

Lock on underside of bonnet

View from inside the engine compartment