Last year I faced the problem that I needed hood/motor cover for my '31 Ford A Roadster in order to participate on some racing, where the rules required a hood at least over the top of the engine. Since I did not have the original hood available and the distance between cowl and grille is considerably longer than stock anyhow I had to fabricate my own hood. My workshop is not equipped with a lot of metal-shaping tools, therefore I tried to find a way make a hood that can be done with basic tools and at low costs (with one exception as you may see below) The car prior to the hood fabrication The plan was to fabricate only a top hood that covers the engine and goes down the sides just below the bead on the waistlin of the car's body. For ease of fabrication I decided to make the hood from two parts with a longitudinal seam on the top centre of the hood. First I took some relatively thin cardboard (drawing board or similar) that I taped over the engine between cowl and grille. On this I marked the shape (centre seam and side) with a pencil, took off the tape and cut along the marked lines to get two templates (don't forget to mark the left and right side - at least on my car they were not 100% identical). I extended the lower sides of templates about 20 mm over the required size in order to get enough material to bend the edge for longitudinal stiffness of the hood later. Furthemore one hood halve got a similar extensions on the top/the centre as overlap for later joiningof the halves. Both templates were again taped to the car to check for correct fit and after I was satisfied the shapes were transferred to 2 pieces of thin aluminum sheet metal (the same would also work with thin steel) Cardboard template shape transferred to aluminum sheets I then cut out both hood-halves from the aluminum sheets with tin snips and smoothed the edges slightly with sand paper. One half of the hood cut from the sheet. The next steps are the only ones that require some more sophisticated tools: As I wanted to have the original bead line of the car's body to continue through the hood sides I had to fabricate dies for my old bead roller according to the shape of the original bead on the body. Fortunately I have a lathe in my workshop, so that it took just a bit of patience to get the correct bead rolls... Fabricated Model A body bead rolls... The next step was rolling the beads into the lower sides of the hood halves on the correct height (that I marked on the cardboard templates earlier). After the beads were rolled I bent the lower edge of each hood panel inside about 130° on a sheet meatal bender (could also be accomplished on a normal bench vise with some fairing afterwards). After the edges were sligthly faired the panels are now ready for shaping. Bead rolled and bend edge First I put some generous layers of tape on the contact surfaces on the cowl and the grille to prevent scratching of the car's paint during shaping of the hood panels. I then marked the centre line of the hood on the tape to have a reference mark when putting the panels on for test fitting. Now I took the hood panels and bent them manually roughly in shape. I took a felt pen to mark the lines/areas where the panels had to be formed to the car. Pre-forming of panel on car Next I took the gas bottle from my MIG welder, layed it on the floor and used it as a bending die to hand form the hodd panels inthe correct shape.. Shaping of the hood panel on a gas bottle As the diameter of the bottle was a bit too large to get the correct curvature I used a length of 1" water pipe that I clamped in the bench vise for the fine tuning of the panel's shape. Shaping of panel on a length of water pipe I got both hood panels in a nicely fitting shape this way and taped them in place on the car to check the final shape (I had to trim the forward and aft outer edges a bit with a snip). Both hood halves taped in place after shaping Now the bead roller was again used to put an offset on the overlapping centre side of one hood halve (offset about the same amount as the material thickness for a smooth joint). I drilled holes along the overlapping joint line and connected both hood halves using classic round head aluminum rivets. Both hood halves connected by rivets. The last remaining steps were to drill 4 mounting holes in the front and aft edges of the hood to mount the hood on the car. I used DZUS fasteners for moutning, so that I can quickly removed the hood but there are certainly many other options to mount the hood to the car (leather straps, springs, nuts&bolts...). A strip of foam rubber on the underside of the hood where it is in contact with the car at the cowl and grille prevents scratching of the paint and gives a little pre-tension to the fasteners. I did not paint the hood but only used some very fine wet sanding paper to give it a matt sheen. Considering the limited amount of work and low costs involved I am quite satisfied with the hood after running it on the car during this summer without any problems. It enhanced the look of the car more than I would have expected and can be taken off quickly if I prefer the look without hood (although it meanwhile stays on most of the time). Finished hood on car (no better photo available unfortunately) Helge
Nicely done. The hood looks really good and the car looks super too. I like that you made the hood with simple tools, but it doesn't look it.
NICE! I missed this one till now. Combine this with the "louvers with a stone chisel" and man, you really got it going on!
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