I know this was an older thread but I just finished my solution to this issue so I thought I would post what I did since you don't read much on this issue on a B&B. I think there is value in detail so this will be a little long.
There are two issues with the hood latches on the B&Bs that were on my mind. One was the lever that bolts to the latch arm the other was how do you handle the anchor point in the body. Do you cut the body or bolt on a bracket? I make a polished bracket but it seemd the hole in the body would look better.
After looking at various cam arms and comparing them to the metal arm that comes with the kit I actually decided to use the metal arm that came with the kit. I didn't think either looked very good but the deciding factor was the right length of arm since the lever distance is set by the recess under the hood. I decided to make the levers not look so odd I needed keep the arms as short or as close to the hood as possible, and maybe chrome them. I also didn't want the hole in the body to big and wanted them to look equal on each side. To do this I decided to only allow the handles to turn to the center to open and to cut the holes exact so that they are stopped by the body in the locking position. To make this work I also needed to make a trim piece that curved with the body and was pretty exact for the lever to go into. Since my engine was in I needed to be able to the mark curved points on the body that the levers would follow. I used a paint marker on the ends of the lever to just touch the points the lever would hit on each side of the body and connected the points with a straight thick piece of paper to bend the curve. With the hood open I locked the latch, lowered the hood and marked where the lever was, to get the end point of the slot to cut.
I actually made two extra trim pieces for the body to practice bending them so the curve would match the body and not be damaged to be able to polish them. I ended up making the bend using a 1/8" shim on each end of the trim piece and using a curved body dolly covered by leather to make the bend. A large pipe piece did not work. One solution, for what it's worth.
Wayne
