Yeah Mike anything over running a couple wires and I am not diggin the wiring thing. I know my strengths and weaknesses and wiring is definitely not my strength. Pre-made L.E.D. strips is what I will stick with for now.

Thanks SS fan!!! And those L.E.D. accents could look cool on your ride!

 

Stuck in traffic this morning and I had an idea.

I wonder if Ben has thought about converting his hood into a proper "Buick Flip Hood"?



They were a Buick feature in the era you're trying to emulate, and the hinge parts are available.

 

That's an awesome old Super Eight and the side hinges are cool, but there is no way I would ever use them on my project. The main reason is that I don't want to take the chance of ruining what has taken so much to get to where it's at now. I can't begin to imagine how upset I would be with myself if I attempted the side hinges and had failed to align something properly and ended up having to redo the hood.
And don't you think that a conventional hood is far more practical to work under than a side hinged one?

 

You're right Ben, at this stage of the build, a rethink of the hood hinges is a dangerous proposition. If you could go back to "Day 1", then maybe, but now...too risky by far.

In some ways the flip hoods had advantages, they really freed up access back by the firewall, those Buick-8's were long engines set in a "tight" engine bay by 40's standards.

On an HHR there wouldn't be much of an advantage in practical terms, just a "dang that's cool" factor at car shows.

 

I would however love to do a clamshell where the entire front clip, hood, and top half of the fenders aft of the wheel wells are one unit for a future project. The clamshell portion of my next HHR project may or may not transpire, but the planning and parts gathering for the next one ( which will be a Chevrolet) is well underway :)

 

Didn't they flip either way (L/R) you wanted them to? 2 universal hinges/latches on the front corners and an arm in the center back.

 

They sure did, made for great access, too bad they fell out of vogue. Probably done in by the bean counters.

 

There have been many great features done in by the bean counters. The night vision that Cadillac had at the dawn of their Art & Science campaign is a shining example of this.

 

Cadillac has always had the "neat gadgets", but sometimes they were ahead of their time like the Autronic Eye. It was introduced in '52, and it worked, the lights switched from high to low beams when a car was coming at you.

But it also switched beams for streetlights, porch lights, reflective signs, lighted billboards, the moon, and just whenever it felt like it. Too advanced and problem prone like the night vision system, there are times when the "Neato!" factor loses out to warranty repair costs.

 

Were the night vision systems that Cadillac used problematic? I always thought that the night vision system was similar to the ones used for military operations. I have no clue about how well they performed or how reliable they were... I just assumed if they can make it work for something as small as binoculars, that something as large as a car could surely have room to carry the technology.