theastronaut

Welding will always shrink and cause distortion, but it is possible to reverse shrinkage by stretching the weld to reverse the cause of distortion. I see a lot of people heat shrinking all around a weld seam to take the distortion out but that's the wrong approach and it changes the shape of the panel by losing a lot of crown to shrinkage.

To weld the skin on, I started with a few tacks. I used a piece of aluminum c-channel to show the low spots that are created when welds shrink, since it flexes in an even arc. Each weld was planished/stretched via hammer on dolly stretching until the arc returned. In the spots I over-stretched and made a high spot, the next round of weld dots would shrink the high spot back into shape. I've mentioned hammer on dolly stretching to reverse weld shrinkage before, but showing it with c-channel gives a clear visual on what's going on. The low spots before planishing. No low spot in between the welds. After planishing the first and second rounds of weld dots- the arc is restored. This one was over-planished which made a high spot. Welding directly beside it shrunk it down to the correct arc again. Welding directly beside another weld dot lets the previous weld act as a heat sink so the HAZ isn't quite as big for less overall shrinkage. I can keep the HAZ down to about 3/8" wide using this method. Thin pry tool used to align the flushness of both panels. Flange detail. After way more weld dots and a lot of hammer/dolly work I had the overall shape pretty well where I wanted it. I used the shrinking disk to pull down the high spots along the seam, and there was a high spot from top to bottom about 6" inward of the front edge which gave the door too much crown front to rear and made the front of the door dive in at the fender edge. Cleaning the fingerprint rust off with a wire brush before DA sanding the skin. Wiped down with mineral spirits to check the reflection. Not perfect, nowhere near metalfinished but should be good enough to be skim coated. I'll still probably need to do some final tweaking to the overall contour to get an even arc across the fender and door once it's reassembled.

Building the lower door skins. I started by making templates of the cab corner and fender bottom so I can match the skin to the adjacent panels. The inner door flange was marked and trim to make room for the outer skin. Skin shaped on the english wheel using an inner tube on the upper wheel to make the top to bottom curve without adding any crown front to rear. I did make a few passes without the inner tube to add a slight amount of front to rear crown to match the shape above the patch. Lower edge bent in the brake as far as possible. Using a slapper to take it from this angle to nearly flat. Pullmax with delrin dies leftover from the fender top, with a strip of 1/16" thick metal as a spacer so the flange isn't fully flattened. This leaves enough room for the skin to slide over the inner flange but leaves minimal hammer/dolly work to make the hem snug on the flange. Also minimizes the change of stretching the flange when hammer/dollying the hemmed flange flat. Test fit at the correct height to match the fender bottom and cab corner. Scribing the fold lines using a tool that references the fender edge for a consistent gap. Establishing the fold on the bead roller. Test fit. The door needs to be adjusted back a hair to even out the gaps front and rear. Overlapping the blacked out original skin to scribe the cut line. After cutting, zero gap except a slight amount at the outer edges for tweaking the flushness with a thin pry tool- no rear access due to the inner flange.

I ran into door seal fitment issues at the a-pillar. I wanted to go ahead and install the seals so they could break-in/settle, and to have them in place when finishing up final flush fitment tweaks before filler work starts. They push the panel out slightly so they need to be in place and settled when final adjustments and block sanding are carried out, otherwise the panels wouldn't be flush when it's assembled for the final time. I'll use wide masking tape over them during bodywork to keep overspray and filler off them so the same seals can be used for final assembly. Earlier in the thread I posted that I had to make some hinge pocket tweaks to adjust the door hinges outward enough to make the door frame flush with the a-pillar. This made the seal have a few spots that didn't touch the pillar when the door was closed. The seals were also pretty lumpy which didn't help, which was remedied with a heat gun. The seals were temporarily held in place with a thin bead of Dekaseal. With a light held behind the pillar you can see light is coming through the gaps. The starting point- cleaned with a wire brush on a drill to prep for welding and epoxy. I trimmed a piece of 1/16" steel to weld on top of the original flange. 1/16" layer welded on, prepped for epoxy primer. Notice the slight gap left on the outside and upper edges to allow for seam sealer. After the epoxy cured for a few days I applied filler to get the surfaces 100% flat and smooth. The inside corner edges were not filled to allow for seam sealer later on after more epoxy is sprayed. Leaving the edges unfilled will allow for any flexing that might happen, and seam sealer is soft enough to flex without cracking. I'm not a fan of jambs that are 100% smoothed with filler; cleanly shaped seams with cleanly applied seam sealer looks more detailed and allows for flex. The door seal fit was checked again with the light, and with no light showing I used a strip of paper about 2" wide to check that the seal had adequate pressure against the jamb. This gap looks a bit rough since I was just trying to make the seal fit for now. There is a factory seam underneath here that I didn't want to fill over, but I wanted the transition from one section to the other to be smooth and level. I'll use a 1/16" thick piece of plastic in this gap and fill against it to make a consistent gap width, radius those edges so it looks stamped, then fill it with seam sealer for flexibility. Might have some people questioning the use of filler in jambs... all show cars are done this way (usually with the seams filled over) but shops usually don't show these details because of the negative connotation often associated with filler. Figured I'd post all the details and not hide anything, and show the reasoning behind what I'm doing so people can see that filler used correctly has no drawbacks.

With the fender top roughed in I wanted to address some issues with the factory fender mounting points before welding the new top on. The stock method of fastening the fenders uses clip in U-Nuts, which don't sit flat on the flange. That makes shimming the panel for alignment inconsistent, and the area the clip inserts into can flex since there are two openings for the clip- not a lot of solid metal supporting the clip. I want the mounting points to be as solid as possible so the panel alignment can't move around once the truck is on the road and the panel attachment points are under stress. After bolting the fender down using the stock clips the panel is warped around the clip. Having the fender on and off during the mock up/fit stage really made it obvious how inconsistent the panels go together, especially when adding shims into the mounting points to dial in panel flushness or gaps. It also warps the panels that the fender was bolted to, again making shimming the panels apart inconsistent. There's a flat dolly held behind the hole to show how warped it is, which also was warping thin shims. To fix this, I cut out the whole area and welded in 1/8" plate with 3/8" nuts welded in the back side. The mounting face is dead flat this way, it won't flex, and the larger hardware can be locked down much tighter to keep the panels from shifting once it's being driven. Shims also fit dead flat each time the panel is test fit for consistent fit every test fit. Once the fender fitment (along with all other panels) is finalized I can make a chart of each mounting point to record each shim stack height, so during final assembly there is no guesswork needed to get the panels back where they were. The fender bottom mounting tab on the cab had been slotted for more adjustment range and was just made out of a couple of layers of sheetmetal so it was pretty flimsy. After getting the fender in the correct position it still needed more slotting to clear the bolt. I cut it off and welded on 1/8 plate to make a stronger mounting point and to reduce the hole size to just what was needed so a huge fender washer isn't needed to find metal to clamp down on. Bolt head cut off, sharpened to a point to mark the new hole location. I'll go back and add a couple of gussets around the bolt hole to make it even stiffer. The upper rear mounting point is impossible to reach to add or take out shims, so the whole fender has to be removed and shims taped in place to change the shim stack, but with the stock clip wobbling around shimming was never consistent so it was difficult to get the top fitting flush to the door. The bolt goes in from an access door inside the kick panels, so I drilled another hole just under the stock hole and welded in a nut to make a threaded adjuster to move the panel in or out. The fender has a 1/8" stainless pad welded onto the brace for the adjuster screw to rest against- I can leave it bare metal without having to worry about it rusting. Leaving it bare also means there won't be any coating that can chip out later and alter the fender to door flushness.

Since the outside of the fender was too flat, the inner brace was also flat so it wouldn't clear the added depth of the new fender top. I used tuck shrinks and the shrinker to match the curve of the fender top to the hood and cowl profile. Folding the inner flange over after getting the curve correct. Reshaping the inner brace to match the hood/cowl curve. You can see the incorrect shape with a kink in it in the first two pics. Initial test fit. Since the fender bottom didn't have to match the height of the door bottom or rocker bottom (door bottom isn't established yet) and the top is all new so it's height can be adjusted, that let me move the rear of the fender around until the rear edge was parallel to the door with the correct gap. I can match the new door bottom edge to the fender bottom when I make a new door bottom. Checking the inner brace height vs where the new fender top needs to be with string to see if the brace is too tall or too short.

No problem! I usually use build threads as a way for the owner to keep up with everything done to the build, and it'll be a good reference in the future if the truck is ever sold. I copy/paste the updates across a few forums I'm on so others can follow along too. I was a little hesitant to post it here since it has some modifications and isn't 100% stock, but it's been well received here.

Moving to the fender fitment. We bought a pair of aftermarket fenders since the originals were rusty. They're well made from 18g, or at least as well made as originals but... original fitment left a lot to be desired. The top of these, and the tops of original fender are too flat compared to the shape of the door which makes the gap between the cowl and fender, and hood and fender look off. The door has a deep concave shape under the body line stamping but the fender is only about 2/3 as deep in comparison. After looking at the repop fenders, the originals, and other trucks at shows I decided to cut the fender tops off and make new pieces that are shaped correctly. Checking the fender top with aluminum c-channel to see how far off the edge of the fender is. Notice that there is a kink in the fender top, its not a smooth curve from front to back, and how the rear edge being too flat makes the fender fall away from the much more concave door edge. Top cut off, making a rough pattern to cut new tops out of 18g. I bent a 1/4" strip of 18g into the correct shape that the fender top needed to be to match the door's shape and be tall enough to close up the gap between the hood/cowl and fender top. This was traced on steel plate to make Pullmax dies. I also made a second set of dies out of plastic with less curve top to bottom that matched the fender profile at the front of the fender. Making a test run on scrap to dial in the dies. After a couple of full depth passes to shape the blank, I use 220 grit on the top and bottom of the scrap piece and black out the dies with sharpie marker to find the tight/loose areas on the dies. Tight areas can pinch and stretch the metal you're shaping which adds the wrong shape and can add a weird twist to the panel you're shaping, and loose areas don't add enough shape. New vs old fender shape. To make the panel, I bent an edge 90* on brake, then used that edge as a guide in the Pullmax. I made full length, full depth passes with the plastic dies first, then switched to the deeper steel dies and ran those full depth along the back 1/3rd of the panel, then used the lower adjuster to fade the full depth shape into the shallower profile at the front of the panel. The very tip still wasn't as sharp as I wanted it but I was afraid to make the Pullmax dies any sharper out of fear that a sharper die would stretch or puncture the edge of the panel. So I made a pair of dies to use in the arbor press to sharpen the edge by hand. Before/after top edge sharpening.

Haven't taken the time to update the build thread in awhile. I got sick with Covid about a week ago and I'm not quite back to 100% yet so I figured this would be a good time to start catching up on pics. Hood welded together 100%. I'm pretty happy with how all of the folds/overlaps came out. Not perfect but they'll be really nice after bodwork and seam sealer. With the braces in I was able to finish bodyworking the inner braces. On the front I used a long flexible spreader to pre-shape the filler and minimize how much sanding was needed. All of the smaller areas skimmed, blocked, and blended together. Rear brace bodywork roughed in and shot with epoxy. With the hood welded together I could bolt it back on for final test fitting, except the hinges weren't quite cooperating. Taking all of the play out of all of the joints meant that the angle of the hood mounting pad had to be exactly the same angle as the mounting point on the hood brace when the hood is closed and the hinges are adjusted to the correct height. There is no way to adjust this angle, except by altering the center to center length of the link that connects the two main arms and keeps them in sync. Apparently the hinges were sloppy enough from the factory that this wasn't an issue. I noticed that aftermarket billet hinges for other cars had an adjustable link, but there is no room for that on F100 hinges, so I had to come up with another option. The pins that hold the link were fixed in place, so I knocked the pins out and machined new pins with an eccentric end and a slotted head so I could adjust the eccentric with a small screwdriver, then lock it down with a lock nut. I forgot to take pics of the whole process, but I turned down 3/4" rod on one side to 1/4-28" and made a matching threaded aluminum sleeve that would fit in my boring head for the mill (I bought a new lathe and don't have it up and running yet). With the aluminum end clamped in the boring head, I could offset the head and turn the end down to make the offset locating pin for the link. Range of adjustment- Video of the hinges before making the eccentric modification/adjustment. Notice that the hinge stops traveling before the hood is 100% closed, then any further attempt to push the hood closed only flexes the rear brace. Using the eccentric to angle the front of the mounting pad down fixed that issue.

Trucks are as popular if not more popular than the usual classic cars in the US nowadays, lots of time and money being spent to build them to very high standards. Thanks guys! Still working on it, just haven't been posting often. Working on an update now.

With the skin finished that just leaves the braces. I had shaved and roughly straightened them but for the level of detail I'm shooting for just spraying high build and wetsanding the primer smooth wouldn't be nice enough. So I roughed up the epoxy and started filling and blocking each facet to correct and smooth all of the stamping distortion, spot welds, and uneven corner radii. Tape used to set the width of the radius, and tape on the edges of the block to prevent the already-established flats from being oversanded. This is something I've had in mind for awhile but hadn't got around to making yet. Correcting shapes with filler like this means you spend a lot of time sanding an even radius into the edges, and they don't always come out 100% perfect. Since getting the Bridgeport and lathe and learning more about cutting tool geometry I had the idea to make my own corner radius tools to shave an even radius after blocking two facets to a sharp 90* corner. I started with a piece of 1x1" steel to check my idea and see what kind of relief angles it would need to work correctly. I ended up on a 7* inside back cut just along the front edge and 7* positive rake angle ground into the face. I used a 3/16" endmill on this one but bought a set of endmills from 1/8" to 1/2" to make a full set of radius tools, and I'd like to make a set for both 90* and 45* edges. I'll make them more ergonomic with a handle, this was just an proof of concept test piece. I did look around at some of the radius tools for woodworking but they didn't seem like they would fit between panel gaps to set the final panel edge radius after blocking the filler/primer.

The battery had exploded at some point and etched the underside of the hood, which left some rust pits that sanding didn't strip. I marked those areas and spot blasted them to remove all of the rust. After blasting I washed the hood inside and out with Ospho to remove the fingerprint rust, neutralized it, wire brushed the inside to remove any flash rust, then DA sanded and shot the inside with a couple coats of epoxy. I wanted to fix the worst areas while the braces were out for better access so I skimmed/blocked them, then shot white epoxy over the repairs and behind the braces since the truck will be red/white and the inside of the hood will be white.

The battery had exploded at some point and etched the underside of the hood, which left some rust pits that sanding didn't strip. I marked those areas and spot blasted them to remove all of the rust. After blasting I washed the hood inside and out with Ospho to remove the fingerprint rust, neutralized it, wire brushed the inside to remove any flash rust, then DA sanded and shot the inside with a couple coats of epoxy. I wanted to fix the worst areas while the braces were out for better access so I skimmed/blocked them, then shot white epoxy over the repairs and behind the braces since the truck will be red/white and the inside of the hood will be white.

Thanks Mike! New lower corner tacked in place, corner profile needs reshaping so both sides of the seam match. Hammer on dolly stretching to raise the lower side. Lower section opened up for a filler piece since the gap was too wide to weld. Other corner fitted and welded. Marking the inner flange to trim off the uneven edge. I made a template of the cowl's profile from 20g bent 90* then shaped with the linear stretch dies in the pullmax and the hand shrinker/stretcher, then built the structure up top to keep it from flexing. I used it to check and correct the hood skin. Lower edges of the cowl marked to match up the hood edges. Hood hung at the correct height to match the shrinker/stretcher jaws. Before/after correcting the hood profile. Double checking the hood skin fit before welding the braces in.

More hood details. With the front and rear braces tweaked to fit better, I bolted the rear brace to the hinges, clamped the front in it's final location, and the new sides were spaced off the fenders and held in place with a couple of sheetmetal screws. I used tubing to make temporary braces to hold all of the pieces in place so I could begin fitting the skin to the braces and sides. The rear corners of the rear brace had tabs that fold over the hood sides and spot weld into a recess. The old tabs weren't the same shape on both sides and were in rough shape from all of the spot welds being drilled out, then the tab pried up to separate the skin from the brace. With the sides mocked up I made tape templates of the new tab shape to match the recess size. Instead of welding across the straight edge of the brace I made a rounded patch so the tab could be bent along the crease without worrying about the weld seam cracking. The recess didn't match left and right, so the new tape templates and tabs didn't match... I didn't catch that when I was making new hood sides using the original sides as templates. To correct that I trimmed both tabs to match and marked where the recess should end and reshaped it to fit the shortened tab. I taped a piece of 18g underneath to use it's edge as a guide for reshaping the recess. I relief cut the front corners of the skin to make them easier to reshape, and roughly marked the area that needed to be stretched to correct the shape. Edges pulled out flush with the upper grill panel, copper spoon used to weld a temporary bridge to hold that shape. Cardboard template of the upper grill panel's profile, tape template of the new hood corner.

On test fit #6,374 of the hood I noticed that the top of the cowl had a high spot along it's width, which created a weird transition from the cowl to the hood. Even the vents had a rounded shape. I was able to flatten the vents by tapping them down, with a steel block laid across them to flatten them evenly. To the left and right of the vents had the same bulge. After a few passes with the shrinking disk. The disc leaves the surface too smooth for primer to stick so I rough it back up with 100 grit on a 5" grinder, then 60 grit on a DA. The shape after- good flow from the cowl to the hood that should be able to be perfected with a single thin skim coat of filler. Same process on the other side.

The hood brace was bolted to the hinges and adjusted back against shims to replicate the gap size and thickness of the outer skin. Also had to adjust the hinges some to get the angle of the brace corrected so the rear edge had a consistent gap along the cowl, and not tighter or looser at the top or bottom. Since the mounting pad swings in an arc I was able to move the hinges up or down to change the resting point angle. The overall height of the brace isn't that important since the rear flange is vertical; the outer skin can be moved up or down against the brace's flange as long as the brace isn't higher than the cowl, or too low that the outer skin's flange wouldn't reach the brace's flange. To start the brace was too narrow to match up with the hood side's flanges. Marking how much the brace needed to be bent outwards. I clamped the brace to a table and made a mark in the center of the brace to reference how much I was bending the edges. Double checking and making new notes. After a lot of hammering and tweaking, the brace and sides lined up. This area had a spot that fit too tightly against the cowl which would push the skin too close and make the gap too tight, so I laid a couple strips of tape parallel with the cowl edge. With the first piece of tape removed I was able to set calipers at the correct width (silver mark), then scribe the rolled edge to mark where the edge should roll over, then hammer the edge back the correct amount. The bottom of the hood brace flange fit too tightly against the hood side flange, so I used a ruler as a spacer/straight edge and scribed a line to trim to. Notice the 1/8" alignment holes drilled through both layers so it can be disassembled and easily reassembled in proper alignment. I did this to all of the pieces once they were fitting correctly.

To set the width of the rear hood brace and hood sides I first had to set the location of the rear of the new hood sides. I also needed to finish the left cowl bottom patch. I used magnets to float/clamp the aluminum C-channel in place down the length of the door, cowl, and new hood side. That keeps all the new pieces flowing well from panel to panel. String was pulled down the door's body line at the correct height so that the new bottom edge of the hood isn't too high or too low, which would throw off the body line and hood to fender gap. Shape of the door transferred to a profile gauge, gauge used to check the shape of the cowl bottom patch. Adding curve to the flanged ends until the shape matches the door edge. The middle of the panel was stretched to add shape by hammering on top of a slightly rounded dolly to add shape. Low across the middle after tacking in place. After planishing the welds, still not all the way back to shape. Low again after more tacks. This was good enough to hold it together to finish fitting the cowl in place so the hood could be fitted. With the C-channel and string in place I could accurately measure how long the lower flange needed to be made to make the panel sit flush with the hood and door. This flange won't be able to be added until the fender comes back off, and I need the fender on to set the hood's dimensions correctly. The front edge of the hood had been cut out for rust repair, and to shave the recessed emblem mount. I made a template of the edge of the upper grill panel and marked that shape onto a 4x6" steel tube. I supported the rear of the hood with angle blocks, making sure to keep the hood level in all directions. I initially overlapped the new panels and tacked them in place, then doubled checked the fit on the truck to make sure the front edge was in the correct location. With the fit where I wanted it I scribed and trimmed the edge and welded the new pieces in. The nice part of using tubing was that it kept the flange 100% flat. The braces were sandblasted and shot with SPI epoxy. I also made captured nut plates for the hood latch and safetey catch.

Getting started back with updates, I'll break them up into a few posts since I have a ton of pics for the work done on the hood and some of the forums I post to have a 20 pic/post limit. A few post back I started making new pieces for the bottom edges of the sides of the hood. Before cutting off the old sides I made notes of how steeply angled the outside edge was bent every few inches. I also made tape templates to rough in the shape of each end. The rear edge had an offset area stamped into it to allow a flange on the brace to fit flush with the bottom edge. I trimmed a piece of scrap 18g to the shape of the recess and used it to define the edges and depth of the recess, then formed it with a rounded over air chisel tip and hammer. The hard part- making all the pieces fit together with each other while making sure the edges were in the correct locations. Getting a piece too high or too low, or too far in or out, or too far forward or backward meant the gaps and flushness would be way off once its all welded together. At this point the hood skin was really cut up; both sides and almost all of the front were cut out so it was pretty flimsy. I decided it would be best to focus on getting the inner braces and sides fit together first. With the front brace shimmed into the correct position and clamped in place, I started fitting it's flanges to the new sides. The sides were shimmed off the top of the fender the correct height to keep their edges in line with the bottom of the cowl. I decided to shave the holes in the braces to make body and paint work go easier later on; getting paint shot through holes like this onto the inside of the outer skin is a pain and it never looks as good as you want it to. The outside edges of the holes had lumps on one end so I used a socket and mallet to cold shrink them down smooth.

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I didn't post many details on patching the other side, so I'll be more detailed about this one. I formed the top to bottom curve on the slip roll, then added a bit of compound curve on the english wheel, then formed the tighter curved edge on the Pullmax. The brace and patches are 16g so they required more force to shape than thinner panels. I already had this die set that was a close match. Clamped in place to scribe the trim line. Precision trimming with the Beverly shear. It's possible to get a tight fit with minimal gaps or need for further trimming/grinding if the scribe line is accurate. Welded and smoothed. The overlapped areas didn't match up well so I used a hammer, steel block, and a rounded over air chisel to flatten out the areas that didn't lay flat on the lower piece. The flat areas weren't very flat and there were raised bumps from spot welds. The height of the front edge wasn't consistent from side to side and it had random offset spots pressed in. Originally this edge had padding stapled in place to support the skin while allowing the skin to float on top of the brace. I'll either use similar padding or two part 3M NVH Dampening Material. Since this edge will be very visible when the hood is open I wanted to make it the same height all the way across, both for looks and so the padding or 3M NVH will support the hood evenly. I made a set of simple Pullmax dies from 1" steel bar to reform the edge into an even 3/8" offset.

Thanks! Thanks! I didn't remember removing anything from those spots on the hood brace so I asked what they were for on the Ford truck forum. It's interesting how they used the same stamping for the bigger trucks.

Starting with the front brace, there was a plate that the hood catch bolted to that also extended up to the emblem holes in the outer skin. The owner wants to delete the emblem and its recess so I cut off the sides that extend up. There was some damage around the emblem area and someone had brazed the inner brace to the outer skin at some point. The mounting pad for the hood catch bent so I flattened it out. The safety catch used slide in clip nuts to fasten it to the brace. I flattened out the clip recesses and made a plate with nuts welded to it to clean up the look and make it easier to mount. The clips don't let the base sit flat and they move around whenever you loosen the bolts which makes it harder to adjust accurately. I also welded up the holes for the emblem mounting studs. The edge that sits against the hood skin was curled and rough. I ran the edge through the planishing hammer to flatten it and pulled tape for a reference to grind back to. Things like this are quick and easy to do while its apart and will make the sanding the high build much easier. Another area that only takes 5-10 min and makes life a lot easier when sanding primer; the cut outs had rough edges that I flattened with a hammer and dolly. There are a couple of unused stampings that bigger trucks used for latching the hood that aren't needed.

The hood ended up needing a lot more work than anticipated. Moving the doors outward to align the A-pillar and window frame meant that the cowl had to be widened to match, and to get the shape to flow from the doors to cowl to hood meant the hood needed widening as well. The front corners of the hood didn't match up with the shape of the fender tops, and the passenger side hood was too short once I had bent the side out to match the shape of the cowl. I initially cut the passenger side lower edge off to make a new taller piece to weld on. I use tape and mark the bends and overall length to use as a template for the new piece. The hump and curved outer edge were made with the tipping die on the bead roller, then fine tuned with the shrinker/stretcher. This edge was in rough shape so I made a new section to weld in. Test fitting and tweaking. Forming an offset for the new panel to fit into. The corner was rusty and dented and shaped wrong so I made a new one. Lots of puckering from shrinking the edge, half of it shown hammered out. The front edge of the hood was rusty and I had cut that out back when I stripped and blasted the hood. Between the front edge, passenger edge, and passenger front corner being cut out the hood was too flimsy to fit the new outer edge. With the brace still in it wouldn't be possible to planish the welds across the front. I also found some stress cracks around the spot welds so I decided to remove the braces so I could do a better job of patching the rust and making the hood fit the cowl properly. This rust along the back edge was flaking up and would've caused a high spot to show up later on, and eventually would've rusted through. With the skin off I can mock up the braces, weld in the new outer sides, all while setting the gap to the grill filler panel and fenders, and making sure the back edge is flush with the cowl.

The driver side of the cowl had the same rust and fit issues. This side didn't have an access hole and even if it did I didn't want to go through the hassle that the passenger side was. I should've done this on the other side, there will only be about 2" of butt-weld seams on exterior surfaces that don't have access this way so no planishing/contorting will be needed. Cutting the cowl top off caused the top of the firewall to flex forward from the weight of the hood, so I welded in a turnbuckle and pulled it back into the correct position. The edge of the cowl and the edge of the hood didn't match up before cutting the cowl open. Having the skin off let me rearrange the edge to match the shape of the hood for an even gap. I used a chisel tipped hammer to move the crease over, along with a machined down hub as a post dolly and the bead roller to keep the corner sharp. The dark line is the old edge. Making progress. I'll finish shaping the cowl once the hood is back together an on the truck so I can make sure it's surface is in line with the door and hood.