Hey guys, I finally combed through a couple of Pick 'N' Pulls and found a few nice GSL's to tear through for parts. One of the parts was a hood to experiment on!

Now begins the fun part of trying to install custom build vents into my newly aquired hood.



Hood meet grinder... grinder meet hood

I have the top of the hood completely sanded down to the bare metal now. (2 hours later X.x)

But I ran outta time in the class, so the hood's laying in the back of the minivan waiting for me to take her out and make measurements on where I need to cut and fit the vent assembly.

These are the areas I am planning on cutting out to fit the vents in:



This is the roughly drawn diagram for the vent assembly that will fit into those cut outs:



This is a very poorly made mock-up of the vent assembly: (I only realized after I started cutting that I had no hot glue gun... -.- so its held together by tape, my next one will be of better quality...)




I will keep you guys updated on the progress of this project in case any of you guys want to make custom hoods, or if you may be interested in getting the assembly I plan on installing. (I am making the vents seperately and then welding them on to the hood to reduce the amount of actual welding done on the hood, that and my Pro TIG welding friend is gonna touch it up when I'm done XD)

 

how to vent your hood:

1) grab ax
2) proceed to chop the hood in all the appropriate places
3) enjoy


.....althought my idea is easier, i like yours better

 

thats fuc*ing funny as all hell!

i will be looking fwd too seeing your project come along!

 

Be intersting to see the results. Personally, I would pop rivet or fiberglass the vents in place, maybe both, to avoid warpage from the welding.

 

I wish I knew how to work with CF/FG... we don't have a class for it at chabot.

I don't like rivets, they're okay in some places... but I just don't like them.

I also found some interesting ways to use spot welds in a way that shouldn't warp the hood.

But right now I am still getting around to measuring stuffs. XD

 

Fiberglass is a hands on learning experience. For your application, it would be simple and the grinder is good at removing 'mistakes'.

 

err chabot sucks hahah

 

if you get access to a air hammer you can get some countersunk rivets and buck them on it would be be flush. if they will hold on an aircraft they will hold on a car providing its done right.

heres a link i pulled up on countersunk, you could also use flat head rivets.
http://www.rjleahy.com/Store/rivets/trvc.htm

 

Sorry about not posting for a while, I've been doing some other stuff in the class so the prgress has been fairly slow. It also doesn't help that I only have two classes a week...

Anyways, I got the hood sanded down to the metal, used a plasma cutter to slice open the hole, and cleaned the edges and made them flush with the frame. I'm going to measure up the template I cut out & make some templates for the fins and assembly. Will try and get them posted this weekend.



I have a Holy Hood! Okay corner I know, but true!

 

Working on the Templates for the assembly... should be done before monday...

 

i know the use of power tools is always fun, but you could have stripped it to metal a lot faster with some aircraft paint remover

 

We looked for some paint remover, but the shop was fresh out of it. Which is why I used such a crappy sander to get it off.

 

Okay guys, I've hit a small snag in trying to make these vents and I need your opinions badly.

I don't know how I want the actual blades on the vent assembly to look, I've been looking through some examples and these are the most interesting of all the designs I have looked at.

a.) Thin blades stacked on each other at a wide angle (50-70 degrees?)


b.) Wide blades with shallow angle (about 15-25 degrees?)


Any opinions you guys have I would love to hear.

 

I'd say thin blades, middlin angle.

 

The wide ones like on the FD hood pictured will look best in my opinion but would have to be done just right, good luck

 

Top picture, for the win. Absolutely, they look gorgeous!

 

I think I am gonna stick with those, I already made a few templates and I like how it looks compared to my orginal idea.

The only problem I am having right now is the fact that the blades I made are 4" long, with the exception of the beginning piece being 3" due to the irregular length of the frame cut out. So the angles I am seeing are from front to rear;

23, 18,18,18, and 24

I am not liking those two end measurements, its not that noticable, but it bugs me to all hell... I may adjust the length of the front and rear blades to accomodate an even angle of 18~20 degrees.

These are the templates I am working with:



Hopefully by my next Class (Tuesday) I will have cut the second hole and have started working on the assembly by Thursday.

Stay Tuned? Please?

 

Okay, progress is slow... Mostly because of the fact that I have access and time to take the hood to the shop twice a week & the fact that these damned vents are starting to get to me.

But here is the cut and ground holes for the vents, next class I am going to start bracing the back of the newly cut vent and tacking a few of the edges of the sheet metal to the frame to stiffen that area up in preperation for the actual vents.

Now there's two holes!


Also, I forgot to mention, but I keep getting this black pumice like crap falling out of the hood every so often. My suspicion is that it's just carbon that came from the engine, friend of mine scared me for a sec when he said I might have burned the insulation in the hood. Then I was like, "wait, I have no insulation in my hood, its just paint and steel.



And last but not least, I am not going to sand the back side down! Just getting this weird little bracket off the area where I am gonna attach the assemblies was a PITA. Does anyone know where I can get some nice, cheap, effective liquid stripper (hmm... not a bad sounding product...) to just soak this hood in?

Hopefully by Thursday I will have worked out the overlapping angle issue and started on the blades and the actual vent assembly...

Until next time...

 

well when i stripped a fender down on my last 7 i went to i think it was either shucks or autozone and picked up some "aircraft paint remover" it looks like snot when you put it on the part but it does a great job and was not really all that expensive.. just spread it on and let it set for the recommended time and then wipe/rinse it off

 

cant wait to see what it looks like man i like what you have done so far. if i like it enough you think you could make the inserts so i can weld them on to my hood. or heck make me a set of you templates and ill make them ect.

 

I will see how difficult it is to acctually make the assemblies... if its not too hard and it won't take me too long I may try and make some...

If not I'll just make a copy of the templates and you can use the thread as a reference point...

Which reminds me... I am going to start taking pictures of the actual parts as I am making them to help you guys get an idea if you wanna make your own...

Still tweaking that angle issue, but should have it done by tomorrow.

BTW thanks for the tip on the Liquid stripper.... gonna have to find some cash and look for it.

 

hey that black **** you are finding is the epoxy that they used to bond the hood to the hood frame.. i just found a piece of it rattling around in my hood thats beat to hell..

 

Huh so that's what that **** is... oh well... anyways, I am not going to be able to work on my hood tomorrow, gotta catch up on some welding assignments... basically doing welds and having the teach mark them off.. maybe Thursday if I am lucky or next week.. so close yet so far.
T.T

 

Alright, finally got caught up in the book some, I'm going to see if I can make some room to at least mock up the frame for the fins and adjust them before tacking. I also spent sometime and made a new set of master templates for the fins, my other ones were a little on the small side.

Well I wil try and update tomorrow, hopefully I can get this project done before December...

 

keep it up man! very curious to see how it turns out...looks good so far!