If the car is parked uphill or in windy conditions, to avoid unnecessary decapitation to oneself or a hapless spectator inspecting the engine, this locking tool does the job.
I cannot claim ownership of this idea as I saw Tony Batten’s idea of a similar bracket in the October 2023 issue of the JEC magazine, but I have modified the idea to make the lock work between the Balance Link spring mountings and the “stop plate” directly above it.
Rather than sharply bend a mild steel clip like Tony did, I decided to fabricate a simple bracket from a cheap 12 inch alloy ruler, (cleaning off the measurement details with paint thinners), with a 4mm thick alloy spacer shimmed out with 4mm diameter washers to give a bracket opening of 7.25mm to slip over the top link and join the lower mounting points.
Could be of interest to others with those cars that have this form of bonnet balance link ?
Cheers,
Dave






