Here I am! OK, the way I did mine. I bolted the hood to the fenders, but I left the spacers inbetween. It has the same amout of gap as if the hood was seperate from the nose. The reason for this is that there is a dynamic body line that won't match up about knee high on the 57 model Chevy truck. I then masked both sides and ran a true "bead" of black silicone to fill the space. It gives the impression of fender welting.
I also cut the doglegs of the fenders off and bolted them to the cab. The reason for this is that I didn't want to bang my head on the fenders when under the nose. Remember ancient rule: Form follows function!
To keep the fenders from flapping in the wind as you drive, I welded hat channel on the back side of the fender and the dog leg and used the affore mentioned jeep hood holddowns. Along the cut of the dogleg, I made a 3" strip that followed the flow of the metal, so when closed, you can not see through any space.
Alignment was done with two long bolts made into pins and a piece of conduit sunk into the firewall top as a receiver. It does not latch. The only latching is done by the jeep hood holders.
The problem I am working on now, is that I do not want my bumper to tilt with the nose. I need to re-engineer the way the hinbge area actually works. It needs to go up and then bend.
Not to discourage you, but you may want to rethink this seperate hood idea. I have seen it done, but with the hood up and nose tilted, you are asking for problems that I don't know are worth the effort. i wish I lived closer, I'd help you on this one.
Ok, beer thirty! <img src="graemlins/mwink.gif" border="0" alt="[mwink]" />