Repairing buckled hood

J

JohnG

Before I got the car, the kids laid something across the fender and slammed the hood. It broke the framing on one side just before the hinge mounting point. I really want to keep this hood, and don't really care what it looks like underneath, just so it is structurally strong and looks nice from the top.

My initial thoughts are to cut out the twisted section, then form and weld a bridge over it. Then address the warped metal on the top of the hood.

Or, is there a better way.

The hood is rust-free and in good condition in all other respects and finding a replacement will prove difficult.

This is a 1963 Dodge Dart 170. P8090186.jpg

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P8090185.jpg
 
***Keep in mind-when you do any kind of reinforcing in the hinge area you potentially change the way the part is designed to buckle on impact-look it over really good and determine if that area where the cracks are was designed to be weak for the hood to fold there.
 
I don't see any buckle points. I'm not going to use an I-beam to reinforce it, just the same gauge sheet metal. My intention is to make it 'similar' to factory in strength and flexibility.
 
No disrespect Bob but I doubt it (buckle points) is any concern on a 63 Dart. I would try to work the structural and tack it up. Then start the top side. When the top and the structural are close final weld what you have to weld then final tweak the top.
 
GM was designing hoods to fold just forward of the hinges on models during that era, I can't remember what the dart hoods were engineered like. Even the potmetal mouldings that ran down the center of the hoods on some cars from that era were designed to break into segments-I know of one lawsuit where a driver ended up with a long section through his forehead because one speednut was forgotten.
 
That hood looks pretty bad to me. I would at least try to find another. If it does get repaired, it will likely be weaker or stronger than original, it would be pretty tough to make it exactly the same as original.

Seems like that section should be cut out to accomplish the repair, this is done by unfolding the skin from the frame and carefully cutting the corner of the frame out to access both sides.

If it was mine to do, with the customer's permission I would put a bit of extra metal inside the repaired area to create a butt joint with insert. This would obviously make it stronger, though.
 
I found three 1963 Dodge Dart hoods on www.car-part.com

Because hoods have two sheet metal layers, they are very difficult to straighten. Not that I have direct experience.
 
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