Hawk1061

My 72 W-30 with the ram air hood has issues. The fiberglass is perfect but the metal underneath is rusty. The worst is towards the front of the hood around the hood latch area (holes), though there are other areas that are rusty as well. Are there any resto parts available? Or someone with bad fiberglass that wants to sell their good metal? Has anyone else out there had the same issue and repaired theirs?

Thanks,
Steve

Olds_71_442

If you can find an old steel hood, the frame for those is almost identical to the ram air hood. You can probably find an old steel hood for a lot cheaper than a ram air.

72w442

Call Thortons, he has new steel liners, did mine about 5 years ago.

Hawk1061

Thanks 72w442, I just emailed Thorntons to get a price and availability...

And thanks to you too Olds_71_442, depending on the price and availability with Thorntons, I may go your route. Still TBD.

Of course once I get the replacement steel, how do I go about removing the original steel without damaging the fiberglass part? And once I've removed the old steel, then how do I attach the new steel to the old fiberglass? Anyone have any suggestions? I'm learning as I go, and any tips are appreciated.

Thanks.

Olds_71_442

The fiberglass is glued down to the steel frame. So it's just a matter of using something like a knife or a hacksaw blade to cut the glue so you can separate the two pieces.

I used a marine compound called "920" to reattach the front corner of my hood that had separated when it was damaged. I've also been told that a windshield urethane compound would probably work to glue the two pieces together, but I'm not sure as I haven't tried it.

I should also add......you can see the glue sticking out around the steel frame. It looks like a glob of rubber or foam.

72w442

I used a heat gun to heat the metal side of the hood and slowly separated it from the top fiberglass skin with some small plastic shims as I went along, I started from the rear and moved forward on both sides with the hood laying down on the fiberglass side on a foam padded body panel stand.It worked out very well with no fiberglass damage at all.I 3M urethaned the new panel to the fiberglass, we used some simple spring clams all the way around until the urethane cured.Just a note be sure to fit the new steel panel to the fiberglass top so that you do not reshape the fiberglass when clamping in place,I just lightly had to tweak the new steel frame to match the contour of the fiberglass.My hood turned out great and it has been on the car now for about 4-5 years no problems. This is the only picture I could find of the new underside of the hood finished.

Good luck and let me know if you need any help

Chris

rand5204

This is great information and just what I was looking for too. When you had the steel liner seperated from the fiberglass did you do anything to treat or refinish the underside of the fiberglass?

Randy

2blu442

I got into the middle of a project like this years ago, pulled the frames out from under a regular steel hood and an OAI hood. Then I moved and it wound up on the back burner. Joe P. has posted in another thread that the non-OAI frame doesn't have the opening to match up with the air cleaner. Mine is only rusty around the front latch area, so some day when I get around to it I plan to look at cutting and welding just the front part of the frame onto the OAI hood frame. Then glueing it all back together again and fixing cracks in the glass. John

Carshinebob

I restored three oai hoods about four years ago that needed the metal replaced. Here's what I learned. The metal under frame is basicly the same as a metal hood except the factory hit them one more time with a set of dies to shorten the frame and put clearance dents in four places. The triangle sections are cut out and there's metal bracing in the front that's different then the steel hood. There's tiny bumps molded into the fiberglass to line up the metal frame when it's bonded. So after I perfected this restoration I added up how many hours it took to strip clean fabricate and assemble a hood. I would have to charge over $5000. in labor just to break even. One more note. I work on lots of these hoods. They're all over 40 years old. Most of them were not the best quality even when they were new. So now after many years they are brittle and crack very easy. If I were you I would buy a new hood from Thortons. they may seem expensive, however they are better quality and shouldn't crack as easy. ~BOB

droptopron

If you get a new frame and are not comfortable doing this yourself check witha Corvette shop. Years ago I had mine done by Thornton's but I don't think he does them any more. Mine came out great and the frame is really nice.