Hood.

I made a lot more progress on my hood!   I spread some more bondo... then sanded it off.

For some of the contours, I used tape to get clean edges on the putty.  The Evercoat Quantum One small repair formula I'm using is self-leveling like putty, you can pull the tape while it's wet and get a clean edge.  You would never want to do that in the middle of an open panel, but it was working pretty well for detailed areas.

The factory stamping are really bad, there are blemishes everywhere.  Rather than leave them, I spent some time filing, sanding, and puttying them.

Before:

After:

I even sawed apart an 8" file to get smaller pieces so I could file imperfections out in the center of the skeleton.  Most of the edges were really sharp and lumpy, I filed them all flat and smooth.

Putty work complete!  Some of the worst areas were the spots I didn't even modify.  The quality of these underhood stampings is not good.

Next I sprayed around with a bunch of Transtar Amber Rustproofing.  This is like a waxy coating that you spray into channels to protect the back side of welds.

I poked the nozzle through all of the openings between the skeleton and the hood skin to coat as much as I could.  This, in addition to the weld-through primer I applied to the patch panels, will help prevent the hood from rusting from the inside out.

Milo the crazy cat helped.  He was covered in sanding dust, he kept laying down under where I was working so I would pet him.

I have some cleanup to do before primer, but I think I got pretty decent coverage in all of the channels.

New radiator!  The old one was questionable, so I bought a new one.

And while I'm on the subject of radiators, I started puttying and sanding the fan shroud I made a few months back.

New tools!  I received a vintage Lufkin 6" combination square from eBay.  I already had the 12" and love it, so I have been watching for a smaller version.

I also received an SK 10mm combination wrench back from a warranty return, so my wrench drawer is complete again!

I went to a gathering at our friend Shek's house.  Jimmy brought his dog Mia.  Racedoge.

Then Jimmy and Jason test drove Shek's Both-Hand-Drive Honda S2000.  I probably shouldn't have leaked these pictures, but BHD is going to be all the rage this show season.

I also went to visit my friend Dave and Ian's garage, and their buddy Andy was working on a Suburban he just purchased for parts.  He drove it home from Cleveland like this!!!  He said it was cold driving without windows, but otherwise it drove 'straight.'  It was only caved in about 2 feet.

He also sprung a leak from the heater core during his journey.  He decided to loop the line...

...With a 12mm deep socket and two hose clamps!

That's all for now.  More bondo this week!

I got a lot of work done on my hood this week, I'm well into the putty work now.

When I left off, I had just spread the first layer of putty on the hood.

I wasn't quite happy with it, so I took it back down to metal.   I tapped around a little more with the hammers and got it pretty close in metal before going back to putty again.

Then after another round of putty, I was happy with it.

I block sanded the entire hood and sprayed it with epoxy primer.

A few weeks ago, when I unpacked the new old stock OEM hood, I decided to shave all of the unused holes on the bottom side.  Only two of these are used - the hood latch and the hood prop rod hole.

So I took a few measurements...

I had all of these filler pieces laser cut from 22ga steel.  It was a lot easier than fitting them all by hand!  And they fit perfect every time.

After painting the back side with weld-thru primer, I MIG welded them in place.  I stitched these together with MIG tacks.  I've been using TIG more recently, but I can't get to the back side of these so I had to keep it cool.  They still warped, which was unavoidable in such thin material with no back side access.

Tack, tack, tack, tack... forever!

I didn't have filler pieces cut for these small rectangular holes, so I cut and fit them myself.  They were slightly not square - about .345" x .360", and I fit each one to its hole for a perfect fit.

The center hole was a little more difficult.  I made a tape template, bent the piece to fit, then trimmed it until it was nice and tight.

I cut larger filler panels for the hood squirter access holes.  These are the holes I used to hammer out the welds on the hood squirter holes, now they're gitting filled as well.

Along the front edge of the hood, the slots were flanged around the edges so I had to cut out a larger area.  I didn't get these laser cut since they are simple rectangles, and the hard part is cutting the hood to fit.  My gaps weren't perfect, but they were close enough.

This forward area warped pretty bad because of the geometry of the panel.  I had to break out the stud welder and pull it back a little closer to straight.  This 22ga is difficult to keep from warping!

And out comes the putty!  It needs a few more rounds before it is ready for primer, but it's getting closer.  I made some more progress tonight after the picture was taken, but it was dark by the time I finished up.

This weekend I finished plating all of the hinge surfaces with stainless steel.

After adding the thickness of this plating, I had to make a few modifications to the hinges.  I cut 1/16" off of the outer edge of the hinges to allow for a little more adjustment.

I made a few more pieces, including this piece which will plate the hood where the hinge bolts up.

After getting everything in place, I bonded it with Fusor 112B structural adhesive.

Here are all of the hinges clamped and glued.

After letting it cure overnight and removing the clamps, there was glue everywhere!

I spent some time trimming the edges of the hinges and drilling out the holes so the stainless perfectly matches the original steel pieces.  The stainless plating is covered in green tape here.

Fast forward a few steps - everything is cleaned and installed!  Of course the finished product will be assembled with all stainless steel bolts, so this should look pretty clean.

I also dug out my hood prop rod, which I built a few years ago.  It still works!

Moving on with the hood, I cut some filler pieces for the windshield squirter holes.

Tacked

TIG welded in place.  I tried to keep the weld as small and cool as possible to minimize warping.

Ground

There were a few small ripples from the heat, so I added a skim coat of putty.

And bodywork begins!