In an effort to get ready to bolt a few things back onto the car, my friend Paul came by and helped me move the bonnet from the E to a cart I made for the purpose. I always forget how relatively heavy the E-Type bonnet is…even without lights and bumpers it’s probably closer to 200 pounds than 100 pounds, and you don’t want to damage it or the car. (Edited to add another photo.)
I always hated the idea of storing it on the back edge, often noted as the thing to do in repair manuals. This cart uses the attachment points to hold the bonnet vertically, in an effort to have it take up as little room as possible.
If your car is on the ground with bumpers on, a better way to remove the bonnet is to release the counter-balance assemblies and jack the car up just enough so the bumper over-riders can be used to support the bonnet vertically, nose-down. Much easier with a lot less opportunity for damage. Put a cloth on the ground first, of course!
Added another shot to show construction of the cart. The only critical dimension is the distance between the outside edges of the two uprights, 33.75″ in this case. Any height of roughly 48″ above the cart deck will see the bonnet miss contacting the base.
Sir,
Do you have any plans, or dimensions, for this cart?
Thanks,
Jake Manning
65 fhc
Hi jack, the cart was organically put together. The base is half a sheet of 1/2″ plywood cut in half again (24″ x 48″ final dimensions), sandwiching some 2×4 timber–two long boards and five short ones, glued and screwed to make a torsion box. (It is vastly over-built for this application, you could park a car on it, in all probability.)
The uprights are 54″ high, and stick up above the box a bit less than 50″ The only critical dimension is the distance these are apart, which is 33.75″, from outside edge to outside edge. I braced the uprights across to the front with some more 2×4 and then used a scrap of plywood to stiffen the top.
The metal straps were found at the hardware store. I drilled an extra hole in them for a screw to keep them from moving.
The casters are off the shelf at the hardware store. Cheap casters will let you down, splurge for some halfway decent ones.
Roger,
I just built a bonnet cart following you lead, thanks for posting this, it solved my problem of how to store my bonnet. What color did you paint the body? I have a 1963 FHC that was just done in Opalescent Silver Grey. It looks very similar to your.