C9
05-16-2003, 07:56 PM
Hoods aint so tough. Well, some are, but this is about the easy part of knocking out a hood for the thin fenders.
Goes without saying that the hood top, the lid over the engine so to speak is the hard part. Even so, if you knock out an accurate template for it and do a little thinking ahead of time and pay attention to what you’re doing, you can do a hood top quite well. As proven by the well done magazine articles that pop up every now and then.
The hardest part on the hood tops is rolling in a belt line to match the one on the body. Even if you skip that step, it’s not noticed by too many and a hood sans belt line - once it gets a little color shot on it - looks about as good as all the rest.
Rootlieb makes a great hood and in fact I have one of their three piece units on the 32. That, along with the fact that I like the belt line on hood tops had me springing for a custom length hood with no louvers for the 31. The custom length bit added $50. to the regular price and they sent a hood that was right on the money. In fact, the front and rear edges are cut to match cowl and grill shell when the grille shell sits down where it’s supposed to on the 31 on 32 rails roadsters. 32 3/8" fwiw, but it will more than likely be different on your car. Measure carefully and make sure the grille shell is where it’s supposed to be and square with the cowl.
When I started on this project, every thing I read including radiator company brochures and catalogs had me thinking that a 32 radiator chopped 1" at the bottom was the so-called “hot setup.”
Maybe. Right now the hood line looks ok, but it would look just right and help the overall stance of the car if the radiator had been chopped 2". Some of you may be thinking that 4" is the correct chop. True on the 28-29's, but for the 30-31's it’s different. In fact, I’m thinking the 32's proper would look about right and have the proper hood line slope if the radiator was chopped 1" instead of stock height. As it is, my 32 has the radiator sitting about as low as it can go within reason and the hood line is not bad, but another inch down and it would be perfect.
As a small side note, the good looking Lokar roadsters have the front crossmember set lower in the frame than standard which brings the stock radiator down to a point where it generates a good hood line. Most everyone uses the Model A front crossmember - as Lokar does - in the 32 rails, but it’s usually set high to get the car down low. There’s other options there, such as notched front frame rails etc., but that doesn’t enter into this little discussion on a simple how to do it as far as hood side panels go.
Keep in mind too, that all the radiator chopping I’m talking about takes place at the bottom of the radiator as far as the 30,31 & 32's go. This is so the grille shell mounts on the radiator sides retain their proper relationship with the radiator top as pertains to where the grille shell sits.
The photo at the bottom shows how simple this project really is.
The most difficult part is generating a good posterboard template. I made two of them before I was happy.
Once that’s done and you have your sheet metal sheared to rough size you can tape the template to the sheet metal with 2-3 pieces of masking tape and outline it with a Sharpie fine point felt pen. I know that some have cautioned against the use of a Sharpie on primer as the marks won’t come out and will show through the finish coats of paint. I believe them - but I think the Sharpie used on bare metal won’t be a problem. The enviro style brake cleaner seems to take all the Sharpie ink off with no problems.
Once the “cut” lines are down, label them as such.
You’re gonna need a “bend” line top and bottom running the long way.
The top one is 1" down.
The bottom one is ½" up.
Be sure when you’re laying things out that you make a left and a right side and make notations to that effect right on the metal.
Nothing quite like having two nicely finished right hood sides.
Not that I’ve ever done anything like that. . . .
Note that the hood is a subtle parallelogram.
Required even if the grille shell is exactly square with the cowl hood piece as it is on my 31.
That has to do with how the hood sits on the grille shell and the cowl.
A couple of handy hints and a small confession.
I had the metal sheared to 24 x 36" which made it about 1-2" long on three sides and planned to cut it in the shear at my friends shop.
Shear the metal about 4-6" long from where the cuts will be made. This because shears - especially when working at the upper limits of the shears capacity - will try to fold over the cut off piece rather than shear it cleanly. In other words, shears don’t cut really narrow pieces worth a darn.
Fwiw, the shear we used was rated for 18 gage cold rolled maximum and that’s what we had.
The 18 gage is the confession part. 20 gage would have been better and in fact is what Rootlieb uses on hood side panels. I measured the 31's Rootlieb hood top and it is 18 gage.
And after buying the side panel 18 gage stuff, I measured the Rootlieb hood sides on the 32 and they are in fact 20 gage.
It did work out ok, but 20 gage would have been a little easier to work with and more than likely a little easier on the shear.
Four more photos and text coming - so hang in there a bit before posting.
Goes without saying that the hood top, the lid over the engine so to speak is the hard part. Even so, if you knock out an accurate template for it and do a little thinking ahead of time and pay attention to what you’re doing, you can do a hood top quite well. As proven by the well done magazine articles that pop up every now and then.
The hardest part on the hood tops is rolling in a belt line to match the one on the body. Even if you skip that step, it’s not noticed by too many and a hood sans belt line - once it gets a little color shot on it - looks about as good as all the rest.
Rootlieb makes a great hood and in fact I have one of their three piece units on the 32. That, along with the fact that I like the belt line on hood tops had me springing for a custom length hood with no louvers for the 31. The custom length bit added $50. to the regular price and they sent a hood that was right on the money. In fact, the front and rear edges are cut to match cowl and grill shell when the grille shell sits down where it’s supposed to on the 31 on 32 rails roadsters. 32 3/8" fwiw, but it will more than likely be different on your car. Measure carefully and make sure the grille shell is where it’s supposed to be and square with the cowl.
When I started on this project, every thing I read including radiator company brochures and catalogs had me thinking that a 32 radiator chopped 1" at the bottom was the so-called “hot setup.”
Maybe. Right now the hood line looks ok, but it would look just right and help the overall stance of the car if the radiator had been chopped 2". Some of you may be thinking that 4" is the correct chop. True on the 28-29's, but for the 30-31's it’s different. In fact, I’m thinking the 32's proper would look about right and have the proper hood line slope if the radiator was chopped 1" instead of stock height. As it is, my 32 has the radiator sitting about as low as it can go within reason and the hood line is not bad, but another inch down and it would be perfect.
As a small side note, the good looking Lokar roadsters have the front crossmember set lower in the frame than standard which brings the stock radiator down to a point where it generates a good hood line. Most everyone uses the Model A front crossmember - as Lokar does - in the 32 rails, but it’s usually set high to get the car down low. There’s other options there, such as notched front frame rails etc., but that doesn’t enter into this little discussion on a simple how to do it as far as hood side panels go.
Keep in mind too, that all the radiator chopping I’m talking about takes place at the bottom of the radiator as far as the 30,31 & 32's go. This is so the grille shell mounts on the radiator sides retain their proper relationship with the radiator top as pertains to where the grille shell sits.
The photo at the bottom shows how simple this project really is.
The most difficult part is generating a good posterboard template. I made two of them before I was happy.
Once that’s done and you have your sheet metal sheared to rough size you can tape the template to the sheet metal with 2-3 pieces of masking tape and outline it with a Sharpie fine point felt pen. I know that some have cautioned against the use of a Sharpie on primer as the marks won’t come out and will show through the finish coats of paint. I believe them - but I think the Sharpie used on bare metal won’t be a problem. The enviro style brake cleaner seems to take all the Sharpie ink off with no problems.
Once the “cut” lines are down, label them as such.
You’re gonna need a “bend” line top and bottom running the long way.
The top one is 1" down.
The bottom one is ½" up.
Be sure when you’re laying things out that you make a left and a right side and make notations to that effect right on the metal.
Nothing quite like having two nicely finished right hood sides.
Not that I’ve ever done anything like that. . . .
Note that the hood is a subtle parallelogram.
Required even if the grille shell is exactly square with the cowl hood piece as it is on my 31.
That has to do with how the hood sits on the grille shell and the cowl.
A couple of handy hints and a small confession.
I had the metal sheared to 24 x 36" which made it about 1-2" long on three sides and planned to cut it in the shear at my friends shop.
Shear the metal about 4-6" long from where the cuts will be made. This because shears - especially when working at the upper limits of the shears capacity - will try to fold over the cut off piece rather than shear it cleanly. In other words, shears don’t cut really narrow pieces worth a darn.
Fwiw, the shear we used was rated for 18 gage cold rolled maximum and that’s what we had.
The 18 gage is the confession part. 20 gage would have been better and in fact is what Rootlieb uses on hood side panels. I measured the 31's Rootlieb hood top and it is 18 gage.
And after buying the side panel 18 gage stuff, I measured the Rootlieb hood sides on the 32 and they are in fact 20 gage.
It did work out ok, but 20 gage would have been a little easier to work with and more than likely a little easier on the shear.
Four more photos and text coming - so hang in there a bit before posting.