Hood Modifications - 1954 Pontiac
The original 1954 Pontiac hood had an 8" wide stainless trim piece running down the center and a fighter/indian hood ornament. I wanted to shave the hood and couldn't figure out what I could do the hood's center channel until I came across an Ebay add for a customized Pontiac. The builder had filled the center channel and ended up with twin blank running down the hood. I liked it and that's the direction that I'm going.
Here's the car just before I bought it with the center channel
Ebay twin peak hood
So off I went to fill in the hood. The first step was to strip the hood to bare metal and prime it on the car. After sanding for ages, it was ready.
In primer and ready to go
I removed the hood from the car, covered two sawhorses with some carpet for protection so that I don't accidently scratch or dent what I'm working on. Next came sanding and painting the hood's underside with gloss back rust paint. Even though I live in a very dry climate, I don't like to leave metal bare for too long a time in the garage because of the chance of rusting.
Once that was completed, it was time to strip the primer where I was going to weld in an 8"x54" piece of 16 gauge sheet steel. 18 gauge would of been easier to work with but the 16 gauge welded very nicely, absorbed the heat and was free from my good body Mark at Duratech Industries.
Trimmed and ready to weld
I had the sheet cut 1/16" wider than needed and trimmed it to fit. I also gave the edges a 45 deg angle grind on the advice of my other friend Mark G. so that there would be better weld penetration and more bead left after grinding it smooth. It worked very well.
To form the bend, I looked around my garage for something with a similar radius to the hood. An old plastic laundry detergent 5 gallon pail was the closest thing that matched. I rolled the sheet over the curve of the pail while applying pressure with lots of checking. Once it was close, I used an vicegrip with 18" jaws to clamp the front in place. I bent the firewall end down and clamped it with a C clamp. The sheet almost followed the hood lines but didn't. I figured that I could bend it to shape as I spot welded it.
Starting at the front, I spot welded every 2-3 inches and closer on the curve. I had to man handle the sheet to follow the curve. I alternated from side to side and had to use a hammer in a few places to get it to shape. Finally, I started finish welding and was able to lay down 2 inch beads alternating from side to side and in 6" spacing to avoid any warpage from heat. It worked and looked pretty good. A quick grinding and it was ready for Mr. Bondo.
Here's the hood with louvers in place with a little more work left to do
The above picture shows the hood after 2 weeks of work filling, sanding and priming. There were the normal amount of dents and scratches and one big angled dent across the firewall end of the twin peaks. It crushed the peaks and I spent easily a week just trying to get them back up to shape. You can see that I'm still working on it with finishing putty between the louvers.
By the way, for sanding the curve of the peak, I went to the wreckers and picked up a couple rad hoses with different diameters and wrapped my sandpaper around it. I used two different lengths: 8" long and a 3" long piece. It was flexible, rubber and formed to the curve very well and best of all cost very little.
Hood Louvers
While in the wreckers, I came across a mid 80s Chrysler 600 with functional plastic hood louvers that are held on with 4 screws. They follow the hood lines and I thought that they would look pretty good on my car, not to mention that they would provide some ventilation for the engine compartment.
After determining where they looked the best and that they cleared the underside hood support. I made a cardboard template. I left 4 metal tabs in each corner of the cutout so that I could use as mounting tabs for the louvers. I'll have to bend them in a Z shape and I'll mount some nutserts as anchors.
Hood louver cut out piece on left and hole on right with tabs bent at a right angle
The bent tabs can be better seen here along with the tools I used to cut the hole
Here's the hood tabs bent and nutserts in place
I used sheet metal vice grips to make the tight bend and they worked very well. I used my die grinder to cut a slit in the sheet metal, a electric jigsaw to cut the lines and a dremel tool to cut the corners. At the firewall side, the rear hood brace needed a little trimming to clear the louvers. A combination of die grinder and dremel tool made quick work of the clearance problem.
Louvers in place
The louvers are not bolted down. The hood dips aabout a 1/4" to the front outside corner and the louvers don't sit flat at this time. I thought that I would make a jig to match the curve, bolt the louvers on the jig and then warm them up in the oven (when my wife's not home). Since they're made of plastic, they should form to the curve. I didn't have to do this as the hood is pretty flexible and there is some give in the louvers so that when I bolted everything together they lined up fine.
Hood warped on driver's side
There was a little dip on the driver's side louvers that showed up as a wave. To get rid of the dip, I had to off hammer and dolly on the curved edge of the hood about 5 inches away. Light taps and the dip disappeared. Off hammering is when you hit with a body hammer off to one side of the dolly. This straightens out the curve in my case.
Smoothing out the waves
The hood was pretty wavy when I started block sanding as you can see from the warped hood pix. So I used a new glazing putty called Half Start which is a two part epoxy based. I don't really like it as it is rather hard and difficult to work with. It doesn't smooth to a thin layer easily which means a lot of sanding. Notice the amount of filler that is spread - way more than you'd expect. About 80% is sanded off.
Proper sanding direction for long board to follow curve
The proper way to use a sanding board to follow curves. Sand at 45 deg angles not along the length of the sand board. Alternate directions every couple of strokes- first 45 deg in one direction than 45 in the other. Avoid sanding lengthwise as it is very easy to cut grooves with the edge of the long board. Even sanding sideways is good.
Sanding block for when you get close
You want to spray a mist of flat black or flat red primer when you block sand (150 to 180 grit). The idea is that you will lightly sand off the misted paint and the low and high areas will show up. Use flat colors because gloss paint gums up the sandpaper faster. You use a flat sanding block, long board or other flat tool to sand with. Don't use you hands. Low areas can be built up with finishing putty. High areas will need to be hammered down.
Before picture
Here's the after pix: hood in primer and optional dust waiting for paint
Another angle that shows the "very difficult to make" ridges, the louvres are just resting in place