During the past 10 years of Jeepin’ (nine of those with the TJ), I’ve met a bunch of nice Jeeper folks. Many exchange e-mails with me on and off during the year….some every couple of years. They often times have a question about one of the site write-ups or are trying to figure out what to do regarding a possible mod. Some folks push the envelope a bit but most are considerate and don’t use me as an unpaid consultant. And so I got an e-mail from Josh Snyder with some photos of a nice hood project he wanted to share with me. I asked him for some more details concerning the photos and got him to draft a nice little write-up to share with everyone on the site. Thanks Josh. For what it is worth, you did a nice job on your hood!
OK…..on to Josh’s write-up about his hood project. Here’s what he has to say about it.
I have been wanting to install some sort of heat reduction on my hood, been shopping around for some time before I found this one that really tickled my fancy. I recently purchased my Aluminum Customs Cyclone hood louver from Mike @ 4x4Rockshop.com delivered for under $200. The kit arrived in about a week even though I ordered it over the 4th of July weekend. I was pleased with the product upon opening the package.
The louver comes in bare aluminum with the cyclone arrow’s emblem pre-cut out. The kit includes the arrow pieces if you chose to fill them in, a template for centering & laying out where the holes will be cut, all stainless hardware for mounting, and of course easy to follow directions. The reason I chose a hood louver kit, I live in the California high desert & enjoy taking the Jeep crawling. So with the heat and slow moving sport, I hope the engine stays happy for a long time with the relief it will get from the louvers. I also thought it looked tough and could set my Jeep apart from the mall crawlers… haha.
To start with you have to disconnect the hood light and windshield washer tube before removing the hood from your Jeep taking caution not to break the plug on the hood light. Once the hood is off, the windshield bumpers and tie down loop can be removed. I started out by using Loctite metal/concrete 5min Epoxy from Lowes to hold the cyclone arrow inserts in place. This is a single tube of 2 parts that you squeeze out and mix for use. I used some sheet rock tape on the back side to hold the arrows while the epoxy dried.
I then moved onto trimming the template out & centering it on the hood to get ready for drilling into the hood with a 1/8th bit. Drill 16 guide holes then remove the template and re-drill with a 1″ hole saw. These holes are the corners of each hole that you cut out with some form of cutting tool
Once all 16 corner holes are drilled you connect the dots if you will, by drawing a line from the outside edge of each 1″ hole to create 4 rectangles. I used a cutoff wheel on my grinder to remove all that perfectly good metal. Once the holes were cut I ran a file over all the edges to smooth them out, then hit the bare metal with some paint. I tried to make it clean so I taped the whole hood off for a clean look.
I seem to be lacking in painter skills, but after sanding the epoxy to smooth out where the arrow’s cut outs were. I then used a 3m pad to scuff the entire surface, cleaned, then painted the louver. Once I gave the paint a good 24hrs of dry time in the low humidity of the high desert, it was ready to install. The windshield bumpers and tie down loop holes are used in aiding the centering of the hood with the center line that was put down for the template. Once you have your louver in place, the windshield bumpers and tie down loop are bolted in place and you start drilling 3/16th holes to stick the stainless bolts through to secure the louver to the hood. 32 allen bolts later and every thing back in its right place.
Here is the underside. You do have to be careful not to cut the front hood support when cutting the front holes. This was a very straight forward install that did not take a lot of skill. I started this Friday night and finished Saturday night due to waiting for the paint to dry.
Stu’s comments: Josh, your project write-up and photos are very much appreciated. You did a great job on everything, no doubt about it. For the folks who are on a smaller budget and don’t want to cut as much sheet metal, here is a smaller pair of TJ hood louvers that might satisfy your needs.