slickric01

I am attempting to mount a hood lock to secure my HIDs on my 2003. During the installation, I noticed that the usual location for the deadbolt (driver's side portionof the front frame) is in the same spot as an intake vent. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to this stuff. When looking under the hood there is a black vent the rests on top of the front of the frame that the hood close onto. It is on the driver's side just to the right of 2 yellow stickers.

Firt, what is this? Second, would mounting the hood lock in front of this have any bad effect? I hope this all makes sense. Let me know if there are any questions.

Thanks.

Kojiro_FtT

That's your air intake for the engine. You can put the lock in front of it, as long as it doesn't block it too much. Maybe you can try putting the hood lock on the passenger side?

slickric01

I thought about mounting it on the psngr. side. A couple of reasons why I would have preferred not to.

1) With the lock on the driver's side it's harder for thieves to pry the hood to cut the battery.

2) There's a natural location to punch a whole through the firewall on the driver's side where the clutch would be (but isn't on an automatic)

jsmith24

Where'd you get this hood lock?

Jack

Uconn411

Right now, I have my hood "locked" by 3/32" galvanized cable on each side. I ran it through the top of the hood 1st, where there are pre-existing holes. Then, I ran it down to my tow hooks in front, and locked the cable to itself using a home depot cable clamp. So, when I go somewhere, I try and park my car so that the curb or other obstruction is right under the front end. Since the max is so low, it would be impossible to unbolt, unless of course someone jacks it up. Take a look at my webpage below. The last pic is what I'm talking about. I've already done it, just haven't updated the page. Its too cold out in CT to take pics!!!

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/raa97003/Maxima/index.htm

slickric01

This stuff looks great! Question about your method of protecting the hood release cable in pic 7. Where did you get the metal? Is it mounted to anything? Did you have to preshape it?

Uconn411

That piece of metal in question is sheet metal that I wrapped around a broomstick. I bought it at Home Depot for $4 or so. But since then, I have purchased the Coutesy HID theft kit, which includes a very nice cable protector that extends off of the main hood release bracket. I am just waiting for it to hit around the 30 degree mark to install it.
I do plan on buying some thicker metal from one of the places I listed below. I am going to improve on my HID theft cover to go over the tabs, and then rivet the sides (possibly by drilling small holes and riveting to the frame of the car). The one I made out of sheet metal so far protects the ballasts, but serves as more of a template since the metal is thin.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/index.cfm?partnerid=43
http://www.midlandxpressmetals.com/