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Death by bonnet prop


daveturnbull

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Well after 10 years of Land Rover ownership, I have finally fallen victim to the satanic scissor bonnet prop.

Busily removing the remains of an old serpentine belt that had wrapped itself round the water pump pulley, minding my own business, picking it out strand by strand, all of a sudden find my face embedded in the thermostat housing, and a sharp pain in my spine. Many 4 letter words that the kids next door probably shouldn't know followed, along with much wincing.

My Wife's reaction to this...

rushing out to help.... no.

checking I was ok... no.

even a small amount of sympathy... no.

She actually laughed so much she could no longer stand. "It looked like your land rover was eating you".

I guess that's what you get for marrying an intensive care nurse. If you're not nearly dead, man up, ffs.

Mr HFH - there will be an order for one of your anti-death kits on its way shortly. Don't fancy experiencing that again.

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No spare wheel luckily, or I probably would be dead. Just the added weight of chequer plate and some rubber insulation stuff.

Face seems to have suffered only minor disfigurement. Spine is actually still quite painful where it got speared by the bonnet catch.

Sorry bish, stopping to take pics was not really on my priority list at the time.

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I'd laugh, but having nearly lost a finger once before I understand your pain + have a wife in similar profession and I think that is part of the training to ignore the seriousness of the problem until confirmation that death / loss of limbs / spouting blood is about to occur!

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A gust of wind caught my bonnet just after I 'finished' the rebuild, the prop was a bit of 2 x 1 timber.

After the spare wheel mount went through the brand new windscreen I vowed to make a proper prop.

Now it is strong enough to hold the spare and you have to lift and push it to one side to release it - it seems that I only do these things when taught a lesson :-)

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A gust of wind caught my bonnet just after I 'finished' the rebuild, the prop was a bit of 2 x 1 timber.

After the spare wheel mount went through the brand new windscreen I vowed to make a proper prop.

Now it is strong enough to hold the spare and you have to lift and push it to one side to release it - it seems that I only do these things when taught a lesson :-)

Piccies please ... of the prop not the accident :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Piccies please ... of the prop not the accident :)

Well its not that exciting really .. but

So you have to lift and push the prop sideways, wind alone can't open it.

The catch sits on a 30 x 20 mm box that runs from across the slam - that box also retains the tdi Rad and the mount for the electric cooling fan..

post-38886-0-36319700-1420904271_thumb.jpg

post-38886-0-67878000-1420904734_thumb.jpg

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I should apologise for laughing out loud, but honestly it was what and the way you'd written, not what happened to you! A friend of mine has a dent in his skull from a Series bonnet doing that to him..I think it was his pink panther but I don't know if the spare was on it at the time.

Well its not that exciting really .. but


So you have to lift and push the prop sideways, wind alone can't open it.

The catch sits on a 30 x 20 mm box that runs from across the slam - that box also retains the tdi Rad and the mount for the electric cooling fan..

That's neat :) I tried to do something similar to a modern car with The 109 but I got the geometry wrong so it pulls in and out wherever you want and doesn't follow thetrack...need to have another look at it.

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:-) it was about a month after the rebuild when mine went TU .. the thing is the wind lifted the bonnet off the wooden prop and dropped it neatly back in place. You would think that warning would have been enough but nope!

A minute later the bonnet whacked the roof line and I thought "s+-*" that's going to have creased the bonnet. Now you may be ahead of me here but as I pulled it forward and looked at the bonnet I genuinely thought wow that was lucky.... then I looked up and saw the windscreen.

Anyway it looks a bit nicer now with some black paint on it but it doesn't stand out in the pics so I used some from when it was in primer.

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