Basically, the latch consisted of a cam that attached to the shaft of the hood handle. The cam indexed into a slotted dowel mounted to the grille. There were some other gizmo's like a centering spring strip that indexed to the cam, and a loading spring on the handle. Attached is a sketch from Ford's 1938-41 chassis parts catalog.
IIRC, the hood hinge bolts are 1/4-28 drilled for safety wire. They do not have a shoulder, the bearing is the exterior of an internally threaded sleeve welded to the structure of the hood. For some reason the 1941-48 (shouldered) hood hinge bolts got labeled 1937-48 in the reproduction parts supply chain.