Sheet metal help. Lengthening hood on my 1939 fiat project

I could use some advice from any of you guys who specialize in sheet metal fabrication. I am planning on lengthening the hood and nose on my Fiat Sedan Delivery. I stretched the wheelbase out to 90" and now I need to get a plan together for making the hood longer.
I'll include some pictures and try explain the details the best I can.
Thank you in advance and hope to hear your suggestions.
Bob

 

Here is a shot of what I did with the chassis. The picture on the right was before and the one on the left shows the extra wheelbase and the engine moved forward & down.

 

Here is a photo shop rendering that was done by a fellow HAMBER. The pic on the right best shows what I have in mind. adding 10" to the hood while running the fenders also.

 

gonna be a bitch'in little hotrod

 

Here is a shot of the hood side. It is a little hard to tell but the hood tapers from wide to narrow. It gets 2 1/2" narrower on 24" of length.

 

I also have two side hood sections from a donor car. I think they will be helpful since it has the rolled body line built in. The pieces are 16" long.

 

The tape line is were I think the main cut should be. I want to leave the vent door so my thought is to cut in front of it.

 

Thanks Gary

 

Rather than cut the main body, have you thought about lengthening the nose? You'd have to narrow it slightly (less than an inch by eyeball, but it's hard to tell from pics) but this would give a bit more access to the motor. That would also keep the hood vents in alignment, that way the only real work needed on the main body would be moving the fender attachment points forward. Cut the whole grill opening out, narrow what's left, then reinstall the grill...

In fact, you may not even need to narrow the whole front, just the top of it. You might have to 'adjust' how the fenders attach, but still easier IMO than trying to change the body taper from the firewall to the nose.

 

you can't cut straight down like that. if you do that and add a section it will mess up the fender shape. you're going to have to cut down from the top to just below the "little door" then across almost to the door frame then to the bottom then add your strech pieces in to make it look like the rendering. if you plan on using the donor panel it will just be part of the work you have to do, you'll still need another 1 or to panels puzzled into the other area to put it back together.

there are also be some other issues you have to deal with back at the cowl or down in the front to accomodate the added length and the taper. at first glance I'd look at narrowing hood at by "relief" cutting those two sections at the front of the hole then making the grille panel match by narrowing a touch on both sides to maintain that taper. that might not be the best way to handle it, but that's my gut instinct based on the pictures you provided. in this case, making the chassis longer is probably the easy part, but I like where it's headed.

if i had a clue how to do the whole draw on picture that thing I'd provide the NFL broadcast diagram--but I don't. Hopefully my comments make sense.

 

falconsprint63 is totally correct. The cut needs to start right above where the rocker sits on the skate and then follow around the fender attachment opening, most likely to a point right behind where the grille section fits. Rather than following the joggle, a sweeping cut would probably be better. A longitudinal cut outboard of the louver openings will then be needed to allow the sides to be tipped out enough to align with the nose when the extension sections are added. I presume that you plan to use the factory louver inserts again. Having to widen the hood to make it line up after the extension will mean that the outer feature line will no longer be parallel to the opening but that is the only way that I can see to do what you are proposing. If you are not going to use the louvers the lateral cut can go through that area, otherwise it will need to be just behind where the grille attaches.

Roo

 

Hey,

I'd vote for adding that 10'' at the area just foward of the A posts & across the hood top shut line, front of the windshield opening & pinchweld. You'll have to section back in the vent & latch openings, but you won't be messing up the fender archs, or the grille shell. You may have to cut releifs in the hood top, to widen the hood @ the cowl?

" Picture all experts as if they were mammels "

 

The reason that I suggested following around the fender attachment opening is that there is not much room to cut between the semaphore (turn signal flag) openings and the cowl side vents and trying to keep that area flat when adding the new metal would be difficult. If the cut was made 1-2" up from the fender opening the flange around the opening would help keep the metal straight and having a wider surface above the cut would make room to dolly the area flat. Likewise with the longitudinal cut in the hoop, the outer feature jogle would help keep it straight. The lateral cut across the hood would also be shorter and again adjacent to a stiffening joggle.
Looking at the front view potos again it may b possible to fudge the hood contour at the front to avoid the longitudinal cut as there is not a lot of taper in the nose.

Roo

 

I think I'd cut off the last 1.5"-2" of the frontend adjacent to the cowl so you retain that shape to match the cowl. Then mount the grille section to where you want it, and then pie cut the rear portion(s) of the hood to make up the rest in between. Then the donor pieces you have will be more useable and the lines will flow smoothly front to rear like the stock front does now.

 

Add to the grill shell to meet the hood? Seems like less work to me.

 

You can't because of the taper front to back. The stock hood narrows 2 1/2" over 24", if you add 10" to the back of the nose the sides wont line up where it meets the hood.

 

I think the first step is adding the 10" to the front of the hood. The grill could be narrowed, but it's already pretty narrow as it is, plus you have the bars in the grill, and then radiator to deal with (it's probably already pretty tight in there). If the grill could be narrowed without the radiator, or frame to deal with then you would have to deal with the front tires hanging out the side of the fenders. Topolino's are not very wide to begin with.

 

I guess we're all seeing here that this is not as easy as it first appears.

to really get a grip on what you have to do you might play with some scale mock ups. cut a scaled triangle out of a sheet of paper (because essentially the hood section is a big triangle) then lob the point off and move it forward the scaled distance you need to go, then you can see what's going to be necessary in simplistic terms to make the un modified cowl follow the original taper to the front. no bigger than it is you can probably do a paper mock up of the whole front end using a few sheets of poster board taped together.

in any case, as I said before--this is a case where lengthening the chassis was probably the easy part. it's a relatively small modification that's going to take a good bit of work to pull off properly.

and after looking at the pics again, yes it's probably going to pull your fenders in some, which means dealing with that issues as well.

It's too late for this now, but I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been easier to add the additional wheelbase at the rear, but I'm assuming the decision had more to do with engine placement and cockpit space.

 

Thanks for all the feedback. Sorry I haven't chimed in but I have been busy with work. I am hoping to cut the cowl in front of the side vent and move the entire nose, hood and fenders forward. At this point I would weld temporary brackets to hold them in place 10 inches forward. Then the moved hood and nose will be wider than the angle of the cowl angle. My thoughts at this point is to tack a piece of the extra sides to the cowl were it was cut. Then it will probably get tricky but, make selected cuts on the cowl toward the a pillar that will allow the side panel to pivot outward and meet the angle of the moved nose and hood. I know there will need to be other pieces cut to fill in the back of the fenderwell opening and the top of the hood. I really don't want to cut the grill nose. It is in great shape and if I ruin it they are next to impossible to replace. Nothing is cut in stone yet. If I need to eliminate the side vent or do away with the hood louvers that could happen. But I prefer to keep them because they are distinctive body accents to these little cars.
Please keep your advice coming. It is really great to have different ways of looking at doing this job and all your knowledge is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again,
Bob

 

After studying it if you move the grill/front fenders out 10", then make the 10" addition the hood would need to be widened about 1 1/16", a 1/2" per side at the front to meet back up with the nose. The question is how noticeable would the taper change be where the hood, and nose meet (if it's noticeable will it bother you, or not). Then it's making the fenders work with the change in the taper behind the nose.

 

Figured I would set the nose and fender were I want them to sit in relation to the front tire. I then measured off of the front body mount on the body and the same point on the chassis. The best I can tell I should only need to add a 6"-7" piece to the hood instead of the 10" I originally thought. The less length the less angle to compensate for. I also did not mention that I want the hood, fenders and nose to tilt forward for access to the engine compartment. This might simplify things or make it more difficult. Please don't pay attention to the support blocks of wood.

 

To keep the front end from looking too long, and to balance the the overall look of the car have you considered splitting the length difference and moving the rear fenders back three inches in the body, and stretching the nose only three inches?

Your firewall/engine location would change, may create less work on the nose, and the rear fenders would be equal distance in the rear quarter. I think this could look really good.

 

there really is no room to move the rear fenders. It so tight around the rear tire that the fenders have to be removed to get the rear tire off. I do plan on widening the rear fenders to compensate for the lack of room.

 

Thanks to everyone's help I built up the courage and cut the nose off the Fiat and started the process of lengthening the body.

 

bolted the fenders up after the cut.

 

installed the hood and fenders and tack welded some bracing in to hold it all in place.

 

You can see the difference in the hood width once it was moved ahead. There is a two inches on each side that has to be brought together.

 

Here the sections on the passenger side have been cut, pulled together and the 8" section from my donor pieces tacked in place. The drivers side is cut but I still have to trim the donor and tack in place.

 

With the upper piece tacked, I know have to cut a piece to cover from the rocker panel to the fender and up to the new piece.

 

Hey,

That's gonna look great when finished! Now don't overheat the metal finish welding or grinding.