1951 Plymouth - Filling and Finessing a two-piece hood - Smooth & Seamless - CRM Tech Do Try This At Home (cont.)
With the hood jigged on a 3M work stand, Norm began by tack welding the seam using a MIG welder. Depending on the task at hand, he alternated between MIG and TIG welders and a torch.
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It only took about a dozen tack welds to hold the hood halves securely.
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Norm cut off the flange on the underside of the hood to create a butt weld between the two halves, and to give himself access to work the seam as needed with a body hammer while welding.
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A couple sections of flange at the crest of the hood and one small piece at the rear were left in place to support the hood braces and the striker assembly for the hood latch.
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All the usual precautions were taken when Norm started the final welding. He added more tack welds first, and skipped around with the welding to prevent too much heat concentration in any single area. "I would say my longest weld was 3/8-inch at a time," Norm says, and he did some hammering along the seam to relieve stress and correct distortion. This was especially important on the long, flat portions of the hood.
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There were several larger trim-mounting holes that required sheetmetal plugs to be cut and welded in.
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Norm used a 1/4-inch grinding wheel on a die grinder to do most of the initial grinding on the welds. This allowed him to grind just the weld (not the surrounding metal) and generated less heat than a conventional grinder.
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To reshape the raised section where the nameplate was once mounted, Norm first made a horizontal relief cut.
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He began by flattening the section with a spoon dolly.
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© 1998 - 2008
