Popupless 1ga Hood

[motozachl]

Well I haven't seen any writeup on this before so I thought I'd document the processes. Many of us 1ga guys don't even use the popup function of the headlights in addition to seeing the 'tetris' shaped hood at

There is an older thread found here about the discussion and a related conversion that I may do later on:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/appearance-interior-exterior/240177-solid-1ga-hood-no-popups.html
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/app...ylvia-headlight-conversion-merged-11-8-a.html


Here's the process with pics shown below
-Remove the popup motor if not done already and take out the headlight assembly
-Take the 'lid' off the light
-With this removed you can use the cut off wheel to hack off the tabs. Make sure to keep some tabs on to bend out for something to weld to
-Grind down the areas that are to be welded. As you can see I didn't thus some of the hood caught fire
-My welds were a bit fugly so I reassured them with some JB weld
-Now flip over the hood and tape the gap for some backing for the underside bondo
-Bondo time
-Sand this down a bit but will revisit again later to make it nice and purdy
-Now flip the hood back over to do the same to the top side
-Finally time to do some finishing with making it nice and smooth with mulitple layers of bondo, primer, etc

I'm currently in this last step so I will upload more pics as it progresses. To do after this is to fabricate up some lighting and will add some sort of hood vent in the near future.

Stay tuned

Saved for later

 

[motozachl]

some more progress on the body work

(i mark high points with Xs and low with 0s)

 

[RipperXX]

I would think a million little spot welds would give a better result. Keeps warping to a minimum, takes little skill and then you end up with a solid bit of metal.

 

[Slippi84]

I just bought my hood from Franks customs in PA and he made it all fiberglass for me like this for cheaper than a CF hood and just as light.

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[RipperXX]

So he made you a hood for a 90-91 model car, with the headlight covers molded in as once piece? (Sounds like the best solution so far.)

 

[motozachl]

So he made you a hood for a 90-91 model car, with the headlight covers molded in as once piece? (Sounds like the best solution so far.)

This is true since its much lighter. How much did that run you Slippi???

 

[motozachl]

Here's some pics of the fab work for the hood vent, took about 2hrs and very please with the results thus far

 

[NeMiZiS]

I think that looks awesome!
I like the popupless look, very different.
You do great work!

 

[LandoAWD]

Here's my dumbass question of the day...

Did you just remove bracing for where the vents went, leaving the rest? It looks that way, but I thought I'd ask.

Another one, actually: Cut the one horizontal and two vertical parts and simply bend down? Creased somehow?

 

[motozachl]

I think that looks awesome!
I like the popupless look, very different.
You do great work!

Thanks I try to keep the craftsmanship up there. As you can see I obviously have much more work yet ahead of me

Here's my dumbass question of the day...
Did you just remove bracing for where the vents went, leaving the rest? It looks that way, but I thought I'd ask.
Another one, actually: Cut the one horizontal and two vertical parts and simply bend down? Creased somehow?

Yup. I didn't want to remove too much as this is what gives the hood its strength. As you can see I started the vent just behind the front bracing. Once I made the cuts, the sheet metal is very pliable. I didn't make any creases when bending it down to form the vents. The triangle supports are made of 1/8 sheet steel.


Edit: I also forgot to mention that the wiper nozzles are also shaved

 

[9!'clipseDOHC]

I like the vents a lot! Jury is still out on the popless hood though...

 

[AK Maniak]

Looks good, I especially like the vents

 

[Slippi84]

So he made you a hood for a 90-91 model car, with the headlight covers molded in as once piece? (Sounds like the best solution so far.)

Yup and he did it cheap with good materials and it's lighter than this solution.


Edit: Not to take away from the Ops work looks good and will be cheaper than buying a hood if you can weld and do body work yourself.

 

[Slippi84]

This is true since its much lighter. How much did that run you Slippi???

Like 300ish. It may have been less but I know not more.


Call him find out
http://www.frankscustomfiberglass.com/index.html

 

[RipperXX]

What do you plan on doing for a headlight solution?

 

[knochgoon24]

God forbid someone happens to lean on your hood in the slightest. It looks like you used few welds and lots of bondo. The fact that you had to tape it so your could fill it from the back side is a bad sign. You should have had a continuous string of spot welds (like mentioned before) so there was some strength.

It's going to crack eventually.

 

[motozachl]

What do you plan on doing for a headlight solution?

I'm not really sure yet As of right now I've replaced the front amber lights with nice white ones and rewired them to turn on with the regular lights. But I know that this will not be enough for the long run. I'm undecided between using much smaller shine through method such as stock or incorporate a bulb/harness into the lens itself. We'll see...

God forbid someone happens to lean on your hood in the slightest. It looks like you used few welds and lots of bondo. The fact that you had to tape it so your could fill it from the back side is a bad sign. You should have had a continuous string of spot welds (like mentioned before) so there was some strength.
It's going to crack eventually.

I appreciate the feedback and concern there negative nancy but I got this covered (i think). I welded on more brackets to the back side in addition to the tabs shown in the pics, its just that the welds were horride (some burn throughs & bubbling) and covered them up with some bondo. The lids seem to be fairly sturdy however at the very corner it may give a little and could use some support. For this I will more than likely extend another support on the under side protruding from the corner to corner or side to side. I may MS Paint something to show what I mean

...

Yellow - added tabs to weld to as there's ~1/4 inch of spacing between hood and lids
Blue - added support option #1
Green - added support option #2

OR perhaps I should do #1 + #2

 

[jdodds]

Just add support where you have the blue lines. Make sure the two supports tie into each other somehow. If you can, just take some sheet metal and bend it to be a similar design to the supports that were already in the hood. The kind of U shape will give it strength. You might also want to think about supporting the place where you cut out the bracing in the middle also. The heat might warp the hood.

As far as your welding and body work goes, I wouldnt expect it to last a long time. You should have been able to turn your welder down a bit and get a nice solid bead on the seam of the whole headlight cover and fill the gaps with more metal. Over time, thick layers of body filler tend to crack and ruin all the work you just went to.

OP, youre on the right path and I like what youve done with it. I just think you should have done it a little differently. If you would have used metal to fill most of the gaps, you would have saved yourself a ton of work.

Also think about adding a duct on the passenger side headlight cover to feed some fresh cold air to the filter.