The front of my hood is eaten up with rust, I noticed in Mid-Fifty's catalog that they sell a replacement panel for the front of the 53-56 hoods. Has anyone used one of these panels, and if so can you tell me step by step how you did it? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Well..... definitely measure 50 times as cut and weld once. I patched mine (both the inner and outer skin) and then had to redo it. Part of my problem was with alignment with aftermarket fenders. I would definetely have the entire front sheetmetal perfectly (ha ha) aligned, and then patch it while on the truck. That way you can fine tune the fit.

As for the panel, it was pretty good quality. At least as good as any other patch panel that I put into the rust-bucket.

Good luck
Mike

 

Mike, did you butt weld the outer panel to the end of the hood, and if so what kind of clamps did you use to hold the new panel in place as you welded.

Thanks,
Charlie

 

I had a hard time getting a secure clamp. I ended up borrowing my father in law to lend 2 hands. That way, we could get it lined up, tack, and work our way across the hood. Pretty un-scientific I guess...

Mike

 

I have bought the outer and inter panel, but haven't tried to put them on. I appreciate the info on putting the fenders and hood on and tehn welding in place.

 

I didn't know there were patch panels for hoods, so I made my own. I needed to replace the lead edge of outer and inner skin.
I had the hood sand blasted to bare metal and found out that the whole lead edge (inner and outer skin) was bondo and there was both lead fill (where the badging was) as well as bondo on some areas.
For the lead edge outer skin, I rough-formed the curved shape in (2) pieces (2.0 X 24.0 - L and R) on a hand brake, positioned each over the area to replace and marked the hood, cut out old, used magnets to hold the patch and tacked (butt welded) into place. Repeated the operation on the other side. After the skin was back in tact, I separated the front reveal from the hood and used a hand-made template to readjust its angle to match my fenders, then tacked the front corner gussets to hold it there and finished the seam between the reveal and the new patches. Cut a flat piece to lay on the reveal to replace the part of the hood outer skin that lays down on the reveal.
My weld skills are minimal, so some body filler is required. The hood is still in bare metal right now because the filler takes me awhile as well.
I took some photos. If you want to see them, I can post in my gallery.
Not very pretty work, but it's going to turn out well.

 

Randy, the hood patch panels are new, they just came out this year. Mid Fifty has them in their catalog, the inner and outer, plus the ends on each side. I don't have the metal working skills that you do, so I will certainly have to go with the after market patch panels. Sounds like that you have done a nice job making your panels, and yes I would like to see your pictues if you can post them to the gallery.

Thanks,
Charlie

 

I've never had to weld a patch panel in so I'm only guessing. But it seems logical to me that after the cut has been made, the patch panel could be held in place by several welding magnets while you tack it down. Has anybody tried this? John

 

John - Yes, I used magnets to hold my patch panels for the initial tack welds. The setup was a little rickety. Those butt weld clamps would have been much better, but I didn't have any.
I prepped the patches and the hood panels by putting a small chamfer of the mating edges so that even where the panels butted net, I had enough penetration so that when the weld was ground flush later, I didn't hole thru anywhere. I also ran a bead of tacks along the inside seam when it was well tacked and before I ground the outside down.

 

"Cleco Clamps" are used by many metal workers to hold sheetmetal panels together while welding. They take a special tool to install but not cost prohibitive and they are reuseable. 56FUN

 

Clecos are great and I use them all the time. However, they are no help when butt welding because they are used where metal pieces overlap and insert thru holes as temporary fasteners. I scrounged my selection from work, but they are available from a lot of places in 3/32, 1/8 and 3/16 diameter. One cleco plier inserts any size cleco. There is also a style of cleco that doesn't use pliers. It is a wing nut-topped clamp-up style that inserts thru a common drilled hole, then is tightened. These are really good to use where you need clamp-up force to pull the two pieces together. These also come in different hole sizes.

 

I added a new album to my gallery called "Hood Patch Panel". It shows the basic steps I took to do the job. I did all of the important fitting while the hood was on the truck so it would match the fenders.
The angle of my hood front lip (which I call the "reveal") didn't match the angle of the fenders, so that had to be fixed also. Maybe your hood doesn't need that and the job will be easier.

 

For butt welding sheet metal I use some clamps called "integrips"
They were cheap and work well

Theres a picture in my paint and bodywork gallery

Stephen