These are on my Phaeton project which is on another thread. It is currently at the paint shop and the plan is to have it completed in time to take it to Northwest Deuce Days in Victoria, BC in July. (The die is a 3" full crescent louver).
Love this, but not at all envious of the time and effort required to re-curve all of those louvers. Not going to ask how much time, as I suspect it partially fell into the labor-of-love category. Now I'm left wondering what it would have looked like the louvered hood and smooth sides.
We just punched the louvers on this one, painted elsewhere but picture added to show finished product
Anthony, we used a rotation fixture made from a Mini-Cooper wheel hub in order to rotate anything with a radius and help prevent the louver dies from flattening the panel. This helps the machine punch outward perpendicular to the radius, instead of a flat back and forth trying to flatten out the panel. These pictures are from some front fender splash aprons we punched, note the radius after punching. This fixture may have helped in that hood you posted, please pass on to Alan Johnson... This video shows the concept, this is our practice piece...
On a visit a year or two ago they had another hood with the long louvers. Alan said they figured out a way to do it without losing the radius. Not sure how. But I’ll ask next time. And that’s some really nice work. A few years back I helped a fried with a 33 Plymouth. He has a 354 hemi with no hood sides. We were contemplating making some “bulged” louvers to clear the valve cover. Might have to revisit that now
@anthony myrick Just to show how "tight" the radius fixture will play, the disc for comparison in second picture is a 4-1/2" sanding disc. We did have to coin the ends manually using a corking tool, there was too much radius for the coining mechanism on the tooling to function: Video version: Radius Louvers 8 - YouTube This was just a scrap piece we had laying around that we had used to see how much radius we could put in a panel using a go kart slick on an english wheel. Then, since the louver tooling was still installed, we tested that as well. .
Not the best pic. The front 6 inches or so of the valve covers interfere with the hood sides. We were thinking about a tapered louver bulge. Shaping the louvers to clear the valve covers. Hood sides look like this I’d either have to stretch each individual louvre that needs room or figure out how to make new louvers then weld em in
Old age and fun times currently have done wonders to the memory. How could I have forgotten about the rows of louvers on the hood of our 327 powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery big time project, way back then? It may have been that the memory of driving around and enjoying the finally finished 327 sedan delivery or competing with my wife to see who would be driving the sedan delivery to our chosen destinations... (her brother's wedding, monthly visits to my mom and dad's old house in Long Beach, photo shoots all over So Cal, varied road trips to the Southern coastal beaches for a day or two outing on the sand... etc.) Hello, Most of our saved/found photos were of the sedan delivery at our last Long Beach house. It was the time when we had an actual camera with color film and several shots in black and white. There was so much to remember that somehow we overlooked the cool louvers on the hood. But, when we found other photos of the sedan delivery in an extra photo slide case, in storage, then everything clicked. It was something we saw every time we got inside of the sedan delivery wherever we were going at the time. Hood louvers are rather cool looking. Our 327 powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery had a double row of louvers on both sides of the centerline chrome stripe on the hood. On cold mornings, we could see heat signatures coming out of the louvers. But, it was all about the look of the louvers, as if it was a race car getting ready to compete. Engine cooling was the main reason for those two rows on each side. It did keep the motor at normal temperatures even with the A/C pumping on those hot summer nights. On cold foggy morning runs, the heat signature rose from the open louvers creating an odd sight at stop lights. The one thing we did not know or were prepared for was that as open as those louvers were, water from weekly washings. So, as good hot rod folks we were, we altered how we washed the sedan delivery. No more whole car spray booths or rolling in the channels car washes. It was all hand wash from the top down, being careful not to get water straight into the louvers. Jnaki We were not expecting hood louvers on the hood when we went looking for a sedan delivery. They were already cut into place. So, we liked the look of a race car for the street cruising, only the rest of the sedan delivery needed so much work to make it safe and drivable. It took months of work to do all of the work for this red color sedan delivery project. It certainly looked as if it was a show car ready for display, but the driving and handling was a nightmare that took months of hard work, repair, replace and align to get it right. My wife like the finished project so much that we had to flip to see who drove it to our individual locations for shopping, visiting friends and to the family gatherings. Real hood louvers were always a point of discussion in any gatherings. YRMV
The Jalopy Journal
