hoods for narrowed rigs

[juanblzer]

after reading the ditch the weight writings...

on a constant search for cool new stuff for my truck...
I happened upon drop center hoods made by autofab

here is a quote from jon at Autofab
[ QUOTE ]
Hello Juan, the hood price is $375 yes you will get better visibility and the weight savings is about 2/3 off the steel hood. Please allow 2 to 3 weeks for processing as we are busy with fiberglass orders. thank you for writing me John.

[/ QUOTE ]

www.autofab.com

sure they are probably not as flexible as the jeep hoods made by Jp offroad but they want a fiberglass chevy hood plus 1500 just to set up a plastic hood's sale

 

[dremu]

Them ain't new ... those have been around since Back In The Day...

1974, baybeeee! But yeah, if I had extra $$ and wasn't tired of working with 'glas on my Chalets, I'd do it.

-- A

 

[sled_dog]

wouldn't be hard to recreate with metal. Maybe I will do it just to do it on the K5. Going to skin the hood anyway. If you remove the big bump from the core support you could go lower. I don't think anyone wants to pay money for a fiberglass hood when narrowing. I mean sure they can be nice, but personally I'd rather just skin the metal one and cut it, plenty light and oh yeah free.

 

[juanblzer]

Wow I seriously didn't even know they were an old item.

The first I saw of them was on that Petersen's blazer. I like the idea of 2/3rds of weight off of the steel. My hood is pretty heavy and I have a solid cage to mount a glass hood to. I plan on going to glass because its light, not very sharp, and I can update the blazer's look overall. I like going fast as well as rockcrawling and skinned fenders rattle (or all the one's I've seen have anyway). I don't like rattles. My truck is not a bucket of bolts or a leaky pig and I don't want it to ever sound like one or look like one.

 

[blk87K5]

One piece liberty hood/grill. /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif

[image]http://www.campbellent.com/What's%20New_files/LIBERTY0010.jpg[/image]

Everybody else does it.

Edit: Pics not working on my end. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

BadDog: Well, tried to fix it for you but the forum software does not like the apostrophe or the space... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif Still, people can see it by copying the URL and pasting in the addy of their browser...

 

[Stephen]

Once you drop the hood down to the top of the radiator, you can't drop the center any more so I'm still in the "skin the steel" camp. It's not easy, we used a little heat and a saw blade to cut the glue and it went OK. The steel does become floppy but mine's a fairly small piece so it's acceptable. There will be a weight difference but I don't know that it's that big when you're down to just the steel skin.
I'd hate to throw away 1/3rd to 1/2 of my cool new 'glass hood.

 

[cybrfire]

I did pretty much the same thing. Heated the structual steel till the glue let go and then slid a thin scraper blade between the two peices of sheet metal to seperate. The outside edge I did with a grinder and just basically ground the corner off till it seperated.

 

[BadDog]

Me too. Hot air gun and putty knife for the glue dabs and a cut-off wheel for the pinch welds.

 

[jarheadk5]

This "glue" and "pinch welds" you speak of... I don't quite understand. Are these between the hood skin and the sub-structure under the hood, or is the hood actually a double-layer of sheetmetal with a sub-structure?
I ask because I'm planning on ghetto-fabbing my own steel cowl-induction hood in the near future. Won't be pretty, but it'll be shaped the way I want it, and it won't cost $500+.

 

[cybrfire]

The substructure of the hood is held to the outer skin in lots of different places. In the middle its held with glue. The outer edge kinda cimped or spot welded to the outer skin. For mine I held the grinder at a 45 degree angle to the edge of the hood and worked my way around the hood. A little grinding and you will eventucally cut the edge of the skin. Then go back and locate the glue spots in the center substructure. Heat up the glue and slide a putty knife or whatever inbetween the substructure and hood skin and it will pop the glue loose. Pretty easy to do once you figure it out.

 

[BadDog]

Kurt's got ya covered.

Pinch welds are where to pieces of metal are "pinched" together and spot welded. You see this along the side of the hood, bottom of the rockers on most vehicles, and inside the door jambs you slip the door seals over the pinch welds. And the glue holding the structure to the skin is really more like a rubberized putty blob that keeps the skin stabilized with the stamped frame. Just look at the underside of the hood and it should be pretty obvious…

 

[Sandman]

I did the opposite way. I did my narrowing job in the winter so I just hauled the hood outside after I had cut it down and cooled it off to about 20 degrees or so. I then popped it apart with a flathead real easy.

 

[jarheadk5]

OK. I thought after reading about glue & pinch welds that maybe there was more to the hood than met my eye so far, like an internal skin AND external skin (similar to the quarters).