Jeff,
Great pictures. Just what the doctor ordered!
Joe,
Before you drill any hole in that hood, I would mount it and do what I said a few posts above. I had the hood, but replaced my radiator support in my GT/CS. Took alot of measurements before I removed the radiator support to include the location of the lower brackets and the bracket they bolt to that welds to the radiator support.
You may find that the hole as per the dimensions in the picture do not locate well with your core support. So I would do a sanity check or locate the bracket on your radiator support based on the hole in your hood, if you drill it first
This is kinda a chance to go back to the actually history of how they did this in 1968 at the factory and how they handled the early prototypes in this one area. This kinda sheds light on how GT/CS cars were built IMO.
It is pretty obvious that the hoods were not punched for hood locks in the “forming” process and that the hood locks were installed somewhere on the line. Or as I like to think the car was pulled off the line at or near the end into a special area where the taillights, trunk lid, scripts (drilled not punched), side scoops, grill, fog lights, side and trunk stripes, and hood locks were installed. The fog light wiring and taillight harness was in the car already. The rear windows and rear interior panels may have been left out and installed at this point due to the side scoop center stud.
They may have had a special jig that attached to the radiator core support bracket to locate the hole from the bottom up vice drilling down through. But Casey’s blueprints seem to support the drilling from the topside down. But investigation of these holes and known GT/CS cars firmly indicates they were done to a nearly finished and painted car. As we know, the trunk undercoat was even on the car and overspray from painting the exterior was on this undercoat prior to installation of the California Special scripts. A nearly finished car!
I have gotten in some “spirited” discussions with the registrar on the above points. For sure the early cars and the debut cars were hand assembled and never came down the line as a Marti verified dealer ordered GT/CS. At some point in the production the car was ordered as a GT/CS from inception, but IMO the cars were still basically hand assembled at the end. The quarters were drilled and GT/CS scripts installed, the hood was drilled and the hood locks installed and so on. They refined the process as best they could, but these cars were not constructed start to finish as a normal Mustang. Never leaving the line so to speak with all GT/CS attachment points made in the forming process.
No unlike how Shelby cars were built. Oh crap, are we more closely related to a Shelby than we think?? Perish the thought.
Rob