Very nice Brian.

Seeing well thought out and well built stuff done at home is something I really like.
Somewhat novel and well working solutions to small problems is impressive as well.
As is your thinking about going transversely with the hood prop.

Having the prop always in place and ready to go without dinking around is nice as well.
The comercial hood props work ok, but it seems like a little more effort is required to use them.

That said - and not trying to highjack the post here - is my take on a longitudinally running hood prop.

Pretty self-explanatory, but there's one small trick to making these work.
I've seen others try, but most times the support rod binds up because the builder used locknuts on the angled connectors.
Angled connectors being a poor word to describe the carburetor arm-like pieces I made for the ends of the prop rod.
Leave the locknuts off and let the threaded rod roll inside the angled connectors.
You need a little more room to turn the rod due to it rolls more than Heims will allow.

When the hood is fully open - about 90 degrees from closed - the prop rod slider ends up against the hood's firewall brace rod connector/support.

The pic below shows how it works for the most part.
I do have a pic taken inside the hood that shows how the slider ends up when the hood is closed if you'd like to see it.