Well the hood went back on today with the spacers and all chrome hardware I bought from the local hardware store. I wasn't sure that my plan was going to work the way I wanted, I had been thinking about it for weeks and finally solved the problem in my head today at work. The hood was bolted on before with bolts running into the cab and had nuts fastening it from behind. The problem with this was the accessibility to the nuts. So I ran the bolt out through from the inside, put on the spacer with a jam nut and lock washer. Boom no more needing to pull the gauge cluster out to get the hood off. The hood vents nicely too, its pretty subtle looking as well.

Here's my little idea:

and a nice little gap for the heat to vent properly