FRONT BOOT LID

Fitting the front boot is relatively straightfoward but it still took me a full day to do. The main problem area was the mounting of the supplied hinges to the chassis. They did not fit as the horizontal door hinge bar that goes accross the front of the car hit them. I had to cut out some of the hinge to clear the section. You obviously need to cut two slots in your front boot to accomodate the curved hinge. I found that this slot needed to go all the way to the top of the boot. Mounting the lid to it's hinge was pretty straightfoward, but make sure you mount them so that they point directly rearwards. You will see that if you mount them following the holes shown on the lid the hinges will splay outwards which while not hugely affecting their operation it will make them a nightmare to mate up to the other half of the hinge that bolts to the chassis.

The picture below shows the lid fitted. You will see that the offside hinge has an extra slot cut in the boot. This was a mistake, pure and simple, and was caused solely by the 'splaying out' syndrome explained above. Foolishly I mounted the hinge following the markings that were on the lid rather than using my head and seeing that it wouldn't be right. Not a major drama and a lesson learned. At least the carpet will cover my faux pas.

 
UPDATE: The pictures above show the chassis bracket being fitted inboard of the mounting. This is wrong. The lid brackets need to be swopped side to side, and the chassis brackets fitted outboard of the chassis mount. The above works fine but I only noticed when I came to fit the wiper motor as it will hit the brackets otherwise.

Once you have got the lid opening/closing and aligning properly with equal gaps around the surrounding bodywork you can then proceed to fit the gas ram. One end goes to the front boot, the other to a right-angle bracket on the lid. You should be just able to see 2 marks where the bolts need to go for the bracket. Once the balljoint and braket are fitted to the lid, clip on the ram and open the lid where you want it to be. Mark the front boot where the other end of the ram meets and drill an 8.5mm hole. Using big 8mm 'repair' washers either side to spread the load, pass the balljoint through and secure with an 8mm nut. The ram will be FAR too strong to even think about closing, so de-gas the ram carefully, and in small amounts to reduce the strength. Do not overly force the lid down as you will only break something, probably the bracket or front boot liner. Eventually, you will find that the ram will move and I ended up setting mine so that the lid opens slowly by itself once lifted just off the latch, but without springing open so fast as to smash you on the chin.

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