Fitting a ffiberglass/steel hood

[Arrowhead]

This is a fiberglass hood with a steel liner. It's very nice and well built. However, the contour of the hood is just a little off from the fenders. I have it adjusted as best that can be done, but the hood is about a 1/8" low in the middles of both sides while flush at the front and back. Trying to figure out he best approach to leveling it. I'd rather not build up the hood with filler or fiberglass as I'll have thick areas on the side of the hood. It might almost be simpler and cleaner to cut the edge of the fender and reweld to match the contour of the hood. If it was a steel hood I could do the old 2x4 trick like the factory did to get the panels to sit flush. Ideas?

Video showing the gap:
https://plus.google.com/photos/10270...47370938946482

 

[Bob Hollinshead]

How is the fiberglass attached to the frame?-can if be cut loose and adjusted? How well to the rubber bumpers fit-and how many are on each fender?

 

[Bob Hollinshead]

The rubber bumpers usually don't fit for crap to a fiberglass hood and I've spent a lot of time making hood alterations untill they do. I think most people just leave the bumpers off. If you could cut the skin loose through the center you might be able to bend a little more bow into the frame-I've never worked on that style glass hood before.

 

[Bob Hollinshead]

If you drilled out the spotwelds on the fender flange you could move the fender down some but I bet it wouldn't look quite right if some of the bow is gone. Unless you're trying to retain all the factory spotwelds.

 

[Arrowhead]

I believe this hood is made similar to how the factory 442 hoods were built, a steel frame with a fiberglass skin. The skin is double layered to accommodate the ducting from the scoops to the air cleaner, The skin is riveted to the metal frame and they could possible be drilled out, but I suspect the frame is bonded to the skin around the perimeter as there are no rivets in that area and I saw evidence of excess adhesive oozing out. I haven't put any bumpers on yet as I really like to have fiberglass parts fit in a relaxed state, Although I will be test fitting them also before I make any modifications. I hadn't though of drilling out the factory spot rivets, I will take a look at that. The front edge needs some work also as the contours are off in that area as well. My though was to slice the top corner edge of the fender and reweld to match the hood contour much like panel matching a quarter panel.to a door. The most it's off is 1/8"

 

[mitch_04]

My computer won't let me watch the video for whatever reason, so I'm just throwing this out there going by what you've written.

I have read about fiberglass hoods (with no steel structure, however) that were bowed from the get go. The companies recommendation was to set the hood out in the sun supported on the ends with weight in the middle. Sure enough, it did work for the person having the problem and it is apparently not uncommon in the custom world. Whether or not this would work for you, I don't know, just throwing it out there.

 

[Arrowhead]

I have read about fiberglass hoods (with no steel structure, however) that were bowed from the get go. The companies recommendation was to set the hood out in the sun supported on the ends with weight in the middle. Sure enough, it did work for the person having the problem and it is apparently not uncommon in the custom world. Whether or not this would work for you, I don't know, just throwing it out there.

Thanks and yes, I've done that before to correct the curve of a panel. But this steel liner is very strong plus it being bonded to the fiberglass skin makes it a very stout composite piece.and resistant to bending.