More Linear Actuators

As I’ve been putting the hood on and off multiple times using the ceiling winch, I’ve noticed that things tend to rattle around and ram into things when you’re lowering and raising the hood.  It can be tricky to line up the hood connection points, clear the guns and have the hood fall into place.  It’s especially tricky to try and keep the hood level as it goes down onto the car.

This is OK for right now since there isn’t any paint on the car, but once things start to get finished this is going to make me cringe every time I bump or scratch something.

To make this lowering/raising smoother I figured I could place a linear actuator on all four corners of the hood in order to lower and raise it into place without it crashing into the rest of the car.  I would attach the actuators to the frame of the car and have points on the hood that would meet the end of the actuators.  I could attach little cylinders to the hood to corral in the ends of the actuators to ensure that the hood was sitting in the correct position.

I figured that 18″ of clearance would be good and I managed to find some 18″ actuators on sale from the same place I purchased my other actuators.  The hood is relatively light (two adults can carry it around easily) so the 400 lbs actuators are a bit of overkill, but it also won’t stress their inner workings either drawing less amps.

These will also be pretty cool at car shows.  I’ll be able to press a button on my BlackBerry to reveal the area under the hood.  The actuators will hold the hood up nice and high to show off the engine and inner workings of the car.  I’ll have to make sure I have the engine looking all pretty under there 🙂