Hood Light Mounts Install Walk Thru (Lots o pics!)

[Aaron]

My guess is you used a double ended stud and removed one bolt at a time, replaced with new stud and torqued so the hinge was never loose on both ends. Then simply put the new bracket over the hinge studs, put the nut on, torque to spec and your done. Well that's how I did mine any way.

I did not time it per side but it couldn't have been much longer than you described. I was installing mounts in both raptors and it took less than an hour for all four and I had numerous interruptions.

I'm curious if this how you did it as well. Regardless good luck and this forum has great ideas and knowledge base to pull from. It will be good to meet some of you at the Texas run. We are bringing at least 2 disabled vets on this trip so we are pushing to have both Raptors ready in time.

Where would you get a double ended stud from? This sounds like the way to go about doing this install. Also, what size did you use if you don't mind me asking?

 

[MarkT]

I do believe that we have managed to shatter all installation records on the outlaw light mounts....5 minutes on the drivers side and 7 minutes on the passenger side. Now, please realize that I had already dremeled and cut the plastic cowling prior to arrival at MarkT's yesterday. Mark installed the drivers side in a timed 5 minutes and I took the passengers side and it took me seven minutes....I am old and slow!!!! Now the best part. the hood was never completely unbolted on one side at any point. What does that mean...no hood aligning....no muscle straining trying to keep it in place. WOOOOHOOOO!
How did this little engineering feat occur, you ask? I am sworn to secrecy, but our own resident engineering specialist MARKT might be coerced into letting you know. No animals were hurt during this installation but it did involve torch, chainsaw, and jaws of life. I have my lights on order with James from Alternative Offroad and they are due in midweek to get them installed before our Anza run next weekend.

LOL... I should have taken a pic of you using the chainsaw to trim the plastic!

Seriously, I like the brackets but was not willing to wrestle for hours to install them. And I wanted to be able to remove them easily. And all of this had to be done without any mods to the bracket or Raptor.

(I'd design the brackets a little differently to make them easier to install and make... but didn't want to mod them after the fact and ruin the powdercoat)

I haven't installed both of my brackets yet... I was hoping to take pics and do a write up but that will have to wait a few days.

Unfortunately, I don't know of a source where you can buy the hardware off the shelf... if rhino posts up where he found suitable "double ended studs" that would probably be the way to go!

 

[vanilla_gorilla]

That's all you can give us? Come on guys, MarkT and LV... Throw us a bone...

 

[rhino]

I can't take credit for finding the studs. My machine shop got them for me but I will check what the original application was. I know there are numerous metric hex collar studs they have on head cores and other accessory brackets. The machine shop had many sitting there. I took a bolt to him and he matched them up for me. My plan otherwise was to use a standard Dorman stud with double nuts.

 

[LVdezertdawg]

That's all you can give us? Come on guys, MarkT and LV... Throw us a bone...

MarkT will make a writeup with pics in a couple of days. He did use Dorman studs to accomplish this. It is a great system, just hang in there and he will get it written up soon!!! Mine are already installed so pics are useless.

 

[MarkT]

OK... here it is FINALLY.

Stock hood hinge:



The parts I used to install the brackets are:

4 - 8mm x 1.25 x 30mm studs- full thread
4 - 1" OD x 5/16" ID stainless steel flat washers
4 - 5/16" hardened steel flat washers
4 - 6mm x 1.00 nuts drilled and tapped to 8mm x 1.25
4 - 8mm x 1.25 nuts

Basically, the secret is to NEVER REMOVE MORE THAN ONE HINGE BOLT AT A TIME.

First step is to cut the plastic.

Next, loosen and remove the front hinge bolt. Install one of the studs into the hole where you just removed the bolt. Leave enough threads sticking up to install the bracket. Put one of the SS flat washers on the stud. Now take one of the 6mm nuts (10mm wrench) that you drilled out and tapped to 8mm x 1.25 and tighten. It doesn't have to be super tight, but you want it fairly tight so when you remove the rear hinge bolt, nothing moves.

One thing... you want the flats of the nut to be more or less parallel with the edge of the hinge when you are done tightening. This is so the slots in the bracket will fit over the nuts.

Pic showing the front stud installed:



Do the same to the rear stud. (Hint: closing the hood and working through the notch you cut in the plastic is the easiest way I found) Again, line up the flats on the nut so they are parallel to the edge of the hinge.

Pic showing both studs installed:



Now if you close the hood about halfway and turn the bracket on its side (light mounting tab down), you can slide the bracket in from the windshield side, twist, and drop it over the studs.

Drop a couple of hardened flat washers over the studs, install the standard 8mm nuts, and tighten. Note that the 6mm nuts you drilled out to 8mm fit into the slots in the bracket... if they don't, you need to turn them slightly so the flats line up in the bracket slots.
Done.



Two installs using this method... no issues... both of us have had the brackets off and on a couple of times... takes less than 5 minutes per side.

One note...the "homemade" nuts only need to hold the hood bracket until the light bracket is installed and tightened. Once the bracket is installed, it clamps everything together very well. There should never be any problems. But use this method at your own risk...

(If I were starting from scratch, I'd do it differently and there would be no need to rethread the 6mm nuts.)

 

[Aaron]

That's slick! Even easier than the method I worked out.

 

[iSurvive]

Thanks MarkT, I think I am now ready to tackle this project. Although it would be nice to have a better method than rethreading the 6mm nuts.

Does the thickness of the 5/16" washers cause any problems? It appears the bracket would sit higher than normal, although very slightly.

 

[CrownOffroad]

My Dually D2s are in the mail and I'm ordering the hood brackets on Monday. This method looks and sounds easy, but I'm trying to understand this a bit better. Is there a way to do this without drilling/rethreading the 6mm nuts? And where does one find these studs? I've gone to a local hardware shop and they didn't have anything even close...

 

[iSurvive]

My Dually D2s are in the mail and I'm ordering the hood brackets on Monday. This method looks and sounds easy, but I'm trying to understand this a bit better. Is there a way to do this without drilling/rethreading the 6mm nuts? And where does one find these studs? I've gone to a local hardware shop and they didn't have anything even close...

I am having the same problem with the studs. I have only found one that is similar, but not full thread.

If anybody finds these, please post the location. Thanks!

---------- Post added at 07:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:51 PM ----------

OK, I found the studs in 40mm length, instead of 30mm. I don't think this will be a problem, but if it is, I will just cut off the extra length.