Content with the shape and fitment on the topside, the attention was now turned to the underside.
Up until now, the factory hood bracing was left in place to ensure the hood didn't warp out of whack and cause all sorts of issues. Now that all the structural integrity was replaced with the tubing and the hood skin reattached, I could trim out the factory hood bracing for the clearance I needed.
As well, I wanted a nice clean appearance under the hood by deleting the hood latch and catch assemblies. So the omission of the hood catch began at this point too.
I began by trimming small amounts of the factory bracing as I went, and filling in any extra holes and ugly stuff as I went.
When it was all said and done, I had removed the last of the factory bracing under the raised area of the cowl section, radiused the corners and finished the edges to give it a factory type appearance.
I was a little concerned that there may not be enough reinforcement or support under the long spans of sheetmetal, so I made the executive decision to make and add 2 more tubes to support these areas.
Of course, there's so much more to what was done to the underside than I'm going to cover here, but let's face it: nobody really cares about the underside of a hood, and most likely won't be looking that closely at it anyways!
Lol
At this point, Scotty was getting antsy to get going on the topside again, so we flipped it over and got to it again. The remaining old paint was sanded off down to bare metal, and final finishing touches and details were addressed.
The hood was reinstalled on the car, and Scott got busy laying down the initial coats of filler to smooth everything out. These next two pics are probably the best angles of the hood at this point in the process.
At this point however, life got in the way. I turned my attention to other areas of the car, Scott got pulled away to do other things in his life, and any further progress pretty much stopped entirely.
And so it sat. For 3 years!
🙁
But as you'll soon find out, sometimes taking a long break like that from a project can give you clarity that you wouldn't otherwise have.
I wouldn't exactly call it procrastination, but getting used to seeing the hood on the car at that point in its build led me to realize that it was a bit lacking in a few areas.
Which, oddly enough now brings you nearly up to date. The next time I update this thread (which will hopefully be in the next day or two), it'll be to cover where I've picked up on this massive undertaking this year, and the steps I've taken to address a few issues that initially went unnoticed.
So, if you're still with me at this point in this long, LONG saga, you are to be commended! Thanks for hanging in there! The next updates from here on out will be considerably shorter.
Thanks for checking in on the build everyone!
Donovan
