I recently gotten my hands across a set of Mr. Gasket hood locks. I was planning on using the hole in the radiator support right above the inner headlights. The only problem is that the bolts are about 1" too long and interfere with the back of the headlight.

So now I have three options:
1) Drill a hole elsewhere.

2) Dremel out the hole a bit wider towards the fenders to allow clearance with the bolt and the back of the headlight. But by some inspections, I noticed that as your go towards the fender, the radiator support actually doubles in thickness, making my job a bit harder. And I'm also concerned that if the a portion of the nuts that hold the bolt in is not clamping onto anything, it may make it easier to pull out.

3) Get a hacksaw and shorten the bolt. But I wonder if the nuts will still be able to thread onto the bolt. I grabbled a loose nut and bolt I had lying around and cut it shorter. And it messes with the threads and makes it quite difficult, if not impossible to thread the nut on.

So what should I do? I'm sure anybody who had hood locks or hood pins has the answer to this.

 

I ran into a similar problem when I was installing hoodpins on my car. I measured carefully then cut the bolts so that they wouldn't hit the headlights. Even after I cut them, there was still plenty of thread left for the nuts to hold the bolts securely.

 

Well I'm not really concerned as far as there not being enough threads. What I am concerned about is whether or not the nut will still thread onto the bolt, I.E. the threads on the bolts become messed up and will not allow the nut to go on.

How did you happen to cut the bolt? Plain 'ol hacksaw?

I'm thinking of just cutting it and using a die on them if the nut will not thread onto it.

 

Sorry, I misunderstood your post. Yup, I just used a regular hacksaw and filed down any metal burrs that were left afterwards. Had no problems with threading on the nuts, but a die would be a good idea if you do wind up having problems. Good luck

 

You could thread the nut all the way onto the bolt, cut the bolt to the size you want, file off the excess metal, and then unthread the nut, then it should go back on easy. Just a thought.


[Modified by Yellow Submarine #00-0675, 11:00 PM 8/15/2001]