Anyone who has owned a 1970 Cutlass/442 or simply looked under the hood of one, is familiar with the mind altering feeling from hitting your head on the '70 hood tongue. Profanity is a given, with blood loss taking the profanity to another level. Opening this thread to share tips that can be used to minimize brain damage.

First tip: If you, or someone you know, gets mail order medication that needs to be kept cold, the packaging is a heavily padded insulated envelope/shipping sleeve. It can be cut open at the end and slips right over the entire hood tongue, not just the front edge; cut further at the open end if you want less excess. Works well, with heavy padding.

Other tips?

 

See my previous post…

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...-tooth-158126/

pool noodles are a beautiful thing….

 

Ah yes, the 69s have it as well. I try to never go under there without a baseball cap on at a minimum.

 

Pool noodle, slit, bright color. In the trunk

 

I agree with the poole noodle best protection also a remove before flight strip in red
Alain 1970 platinum 442 4spd factory A/C

 

I use a piece of pipe insulation purchased from the hardware store. It is already split and I just cut to fit for length.

 

My friend's dad brought home a brand new 1970 Cutlass Supreme and it took me about 1 minute to get a nice forehead scrape from that tooth when I was 13. I learned my lesson, I stuck to buying a couple of 72's instead.

 

What deranged engineer came up with it? Don’t know how many times it’s happened and every time it hurts worse because I know better. Should have a red zone decal below it
Dustin

 

Something like this that was posted from another member will protect you from the Olds tuffuss.

disregard the photo up top. Not sure how it wound up there.

 

Relocate the fang between the grills.

Fab some brackets to attach to the hood release support. I purchased repo hockey sticks and cut them to fit. This mod is completely reversible by removing the fabbed brackets, reattaching the fang to the hood and reinstalling the original hockey sticks.

This mod is invisible with the hood closed. Added benefit to those cars with fangs that are bent inward as you realign the fang vertically with the brackets.

 

Doubt it was a intended design but rather one driven by the bean counters. My 68 Delta 88 had no such fang and retained the center piece mounted between the grills. Predating the 69 & 70 A body design, they knew it was stupid to hard mount the tooth to the hood.
Engineering gets a bad rap most of the time even when it isn't their fault. Schedule and Budget forces a lot of things that should not be in the corporate world