Bonnet catch (was Mystery tool).

[djm16]

Let's see who can think laterally and identify this tool that I have just made and used yesterday. More clues in a while after there have been some guesses and no right answers.

I will be impressed if someone gets it from here.

[dorchester]

Neither a conventional one nor made by Rover indeed!
I assume the chosen angle may be a clue.
But after that I'm none the wiser...

[3litrekiwi]

Looks like a farnarkle lever for separating the gipcycle sproket housing.

[enigmas]

It's an improvised Glockener Brace used to support an automatic DG transmission Clutch Finibula housing assembly. 👍

[djm16]

"Looks like a farnarkle lever for separating the gipcycle sproket housing. "

Darn it! How did you guess?


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A big clue here, think bonnet. The lever was correct.

[dorchester]

I'd thought of that a short while after my first answer: a lever to maintain the bonnet open?
But why? It stays up by itself unless damaged...

[Mike’S-a-loon]

Is it for removing the springs on the bonnet hinges?

[Ken Nelson]

Looks to me like an adjustable protractor for fine tuning the cam timing to get that extra 1/2 hp out of the engine. They work quite well.

[3litrekiwi]

Does it attatch to the bonnet hinge point so the hinge can be removed for refurbishment?

[djm16]

Good guesses all, but se if you get closer when you have seen the next pictures.




Click on a picture to see the full sized version.

[Ken Nelson]

A device to straighten a bent or dented bonnet?

[djm16]

I was checking under the bonnet for the origins of the AM radio interference, and then got distracted, leaving the bonnet ajar. The next day I set off down the road and to my disgust and fury the bonnet flew up. Fortunately I was only going 30-40ish and braked smartly. Nevertheless the hinge mounting points got distorted making the bonnet difficult to shut. Should this happen to you, the worst possible thing to do is to then force the bonnet closed again. If you do that, the bonnet starts to fold up just in front of the hinge mounting points. It is possible to correct, but it is a major PITA, and difficult to get right.

With the bonnet supported on sand bags sitting on a Work-Mate, I had my wife use the tool as a lever to depress the front of the hinge mounting point while I belted it with increasingly vigorous blow to a wooden drift to get it to settle down again.

Mostly successful as long as you are not too particular about the precise shape of the ends of the reinforcing channel that is the hinge mounting point.

It is a bit of crap design that the bonnet flies open so easily, unlike the P4. Has anyone done any mods to stop this happening? The last time this happened, I was 7 years old and it was the boot lid of an NSU Prinz.

[dmaxwell]

I thought that there was a secondary latch that would keep the bonnet from flying open if the main latch popped loose? My '65 P5 has one and it has saved the bonnet a few times in the past until I got everything adjusted. Don't all P5s have that latch? It sure looks original to me.

David
California

[dorchester]

My 68 P5B coupe has got that security latch as well and I ensure you that it's pretty difficult to open the bonnet without crushing fingers, particularly mines which are not exactly those of a pianist!

[Ken Nelson]

My 1966 P5 has the secondary catch also. Perhaps someone left it off during a rebuild. When do I collect my prize?

[djm16]

Yes, mine definitely has the pot metal italic L latch. Bonnet opened despite that. Looks like that happened to the previous owner too.

[Phil Nottingham]

The Mazac metal safety catches do break easily if forced when lifting up the the bonnet. Some brass ones were made about 30 years ago by Wadhams I think. 

[Ken Nelson]

I bought a replacement latch years ago, perhaps from Wadhams, and it is much stronger than my original pot-metal one (which also was broken). Probably steel I think.

[djm16]

On the basis that once is too many, I have made an adjustment to the bonnet latch in the hope that if I am stupid enough to leave the bonnet partly open again, the latch will keep the bonnet from flying up (yet) again. All I have done is insert a rubber pad to add tension to the latch return spring. From feel, I would say that the tension has about doubled.

[djm16]

I don't know if anyone else has had to re-install their bonnet when the hinge alignment was screwed up. I had two goes at it on different days, each time mucking about for several hours. There are just so many ways to get this wrong and have a lousy shut line! I got there in the end and the result is not too bad in the pictures. Up close, I can find plenty to criticise still. The RH side of the bonnet edge did get distorted. So part of the effort getting a good shut line involved standing on the R wing (I am quite light) and treading the RH edge of the bonnet with both feet to remove some of the excess curvature.




As an aside, I understand that panel dimensions (including the bonnet) could be quite variable, hence the need to hand fit everything. Did this improve with later years or was it worse under BL?

[3litrekiwi]

Looks pretty good to me!

[Phil Nottingham]

Jul 13, 2024 8:00:50 GMT djm16 said:

I don't know if anyone else has had to re-install their bonnet when the hinge alignment was screwed up. I had two goes at it on different days, each time mucking about for several hours. There are just so many ways to get this wrong and have a lousy shut line! I got there in the end and the result is not too bad in the pictures. Up close, I can find plenty to criticise still. The RH side of the bonnet edge did get distorted. So part of the effort getting a good shut line involved standing on the R wing (I am quite light) and treading the RH edge of the bonnet with both feet to remove some of the excess curvature.

View Attachment View Attachment


As an aside, I understand that panel dimensions (including the bonnet) could be quite variable, hence the need to hand fit everything. Did this improve with later years or was it worse under BL?

The bonnet is very prone to distortion and under BLMC both wings which suffered from worn out press tooling and the care taken to fettle them went downhill. Late model panel gaps are bad and inconsistent especially the bonnet/wing  

[djm16]

Jul 13, 2024 11:26:20 GMT 3litrekiwi said:

Looks pretty good to me!

Thanks.
Particularly annoying to me is the large variation in the bonnet to scuttle gap. But nothing I can do about it, unless I want to pad out the scuttle to match.