1975 Maverick Grabber

Cemeyer submitted a new car to the Garage :

1975 Maverick Grabber

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Clean and well done.

 

Very nice car. What can you tell us about the hood struts?

 

Thank you. Unfortunately not much. All of the work on the car, to date, was done by the previous owner. I believe he said they added on to the length of the hood hinge and fabbed the bottom bracket. I’ll see if there’s a part number on the struts. He did a few subtle changes to the car, for the best, I think. Hood struts, moved mirrors forward a couple inches and the mid 70’s truck door handles.

 

I like the door handle swap too, very nice. That's a beautiful car.

 

The guy who sold it to you is a friend of mine. Known him for 30 years. Those wheels used to be on My Maverick before I sold them to him. I also know the guy who put the hood struts on...

 

I know one of the posters here did a lot of work to put the struts right on the hinges only to find out the hinges aren't up to the prying force exerted by them. This setup avoids that problem, and I think I see how to do it. First, determine the location of the ball stud on the front end of the hinge. Transfer where that point on the hinge rests when the hood is down onto the fender or fender aprons, then measure from there to the point on the shock tower where you want to mount the other end of the strut. Find a hood or trunk strut with a collapsed length just slightly shorter than that dimension.

It's going to present a little reach around obstacle when you're working in the back of the engine compartment, but I see the prop rod is still in place. When you need to work back there pop the strut loose and just use the prop rod like Ford intended.

The only other risk is the upward pressure could fold the hood like a square body Chevy pickup hood does when the hinges get old and rusty, but this car obviously isn't having a problem...and if someone is concerned a little bit of reinforcement to spread the pressure farther up the hood deals with that.

 

Nice! Love the color

 

Very sweet ride.

 

Thanks

 

Man that's a good looking car. Really like the fact that it got the bumper, valance conversions which makes 'er an even better looking ride.

 

What size good struts did you use?

 

Sweet! I don’t see many with a similar color combination like mine.

 

I'm the process of assembling a 408W, installing a tremek tkx and aje strut front end. Unfortunately the cam went flat on the current 351W, so I had this 408W all ready to be assembled for my Bronco. Looks like it will have a new home. I'm a little frustrated as I bought the car to not have to do any major work, just drive it and enjoy it, but yet here we are. Major surgery. Should be a good runner when I'm done. 9.5:1, hyd. roller cam, TFS 190 11R heads, fuel injection, 3" exhaust.

 

Nice...sounds like fun. Mine is a beast with the factory 6 cyl 120 hp . If it wasn’t so original, I’d put a 302 in it.