Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Mercury Hood Project

As you can tell by now, this car is going to be a big project. Or I should say a number of small projects. Rocker panels, suspension, and now the hood. Seems like everything I have is a bit on the “rough” side. It is giving me plenty of practice and I am starting to think my new nickname should be cut-n-grind.

So, now the hood. I got this hood when i bought the car. It is originally from a 51 as can be seen by the imprint of the front lip chrome piece that was removed a long time ago. As as can be expected, I have my work cut out for me. Behind the trim there is always more rust than you think. So, I measures up some pieces awhile back to replace the front lip. I will reinforce it later.

So, here it is on the car. The eccentric bolts for the hood are 5/16th’s fine thread with a shoulder on it. I had to get 4 of the 6 on to make it workable.

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With it on, I can say now that it officially will not fit in the garage length wise.

A close up of the front lip area with the patch panels in place.

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I marked these off with a metal awl, then removed then and started cutting.

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This is what lies behind the rusty lip. There is an inner brace structure that is rusty as well, however, most of it I cut away and shouldn’t have a problem reinforcing it.

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Pieces welded in. I have more work to do. Much more. There will be a decent amount of filler on this piece and I am okay with that. This is my first shot at this stuff and I expect to get better with more practice.

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