Thread: Brookville 32/ Fitting Hood

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Originally Posted by prpmmp

hey any pro tips on tackling this fit up??? what to fit first??? any certain order?? thanks pete

The first trick is ----






Ya gotta hold yer lips right.

Originally Posted by prpmmp

hey any pro tips on tackling this fit up??? what to fit first??? any certain order?? thanks pete

Originally Posted by DA34GUY

The first trick is ----

Ya gotta hold yer lips right.

Don, the new guy, prpmmp, is here trying to learn, he asks a legitimate question from a pro builder with 40 years experience and that's the best answer you can give? I'm sure there are others here that would also benefit from all your experience. You aren't expected to give a 'step by step' tutorial on fitting a hood, but I'm sure he would appreciate solid, useful advice instead of a joke with a . Maybe pro builders like yourself feel they should get paid for the knowledge they've learned from the school of hard knocks but isn't helping the new guy get headed in the right direction a step in keeping the street rodding tradition alive?

Mike

Maybe I can shed some light.

There really is no cut a dry system to body to chassis alignment but the first steps are after you have the car assembled completely and on the ground with the wheels and tires you will be using :

1. Make sure the body is final bolted to the frame using the correct blocks, webbing and pads. It should be done, IMO, several days prior to anything else to allow for settling (where I'm currently in trouble)

2. Install the grille, shell and radiator (filled of course)

3. Install at least the hood top(s). This will give you your base for body detail lines. At this point you may have to shim the grille/radiator assembly or possibly even the body to achieve reasonable alignment.

4. Install the hood sides - and not to make light of it, you may end up redoing everything you did previously or at a minimum, tweak it some.

5. If you have an 'A' or '32, everything should be coming around at this point. All you need to do from there is to decide how close is good enough.

I spent (too) many hours doing mine during the initial build up - then blew the entire car apart for paint. I reassembled it as close to exactly the same way as it came apart, tweaked it, it looked fine, now after sitting a few months, have to redo it - and another XX number of hours to go

A '33 or '34 Ford, 34_40 can share his pain. He and I probably looked at 50 of that vintage last Saturday at NSRA Burlington and every one as far as I could see had something that was off. Then there are '40 Fords -----

Scared? Na.. Just got my eyes opened up, that's all. I hear what you're saying though about taking your time and on a painted car, I would imagine it would take even longer as more care has to go into not scratching up the paint.
It's all good though. Don't think I'm going to tackle this for a while.

Prpmmp, keep us posted!

By the way, beautiful car in the pic above!!

Ron..

To answer your question, cover the grill shell, the front of the cowl, the areas in front of the doors where they meet the firewall as well as any other place that can get scratched with blue painter's tape, and then cover that with duct tape. That way you can protect the painted areas from scratches. Then you can carefully fit the hood. It helps a lot if two people can work on it at the same time.

If ya want to know the right way to do it, go to,
www.project33.com
Search -- Installing the front clip
get ready for a long and very informative read.
Print it out for referance.
I didn't find this until I had done my last 1, sure wish I had seen it first.
Good luck

Don, thanks for the link.

Mike

Originally Posted by IC2

Maybe I can shed some light.

There really is no cut a dry system to body to chassis alignment but the first steps are after you have the car assembled completely and on the ground with the wheels and tires you will be using :

1. Make sure the body is final bolted to the frame using the correct blocks, webbing and pads. It should be done, IMO, several days prior to anything else to allow for settling (where I'm currently in trouble)

2. Install the grille, shell and radiator (filled of course)

3. Install at least the hood top(s). This will give you your base for body detail lines. At this point you may have to shim the grille/radiator assembly or possibly even the body to achieve reasonable alignment.

4. Install the hood sides - and not to make light of it, you may end up redoing everything you did previously or at a minimum, tweak it some.

5. If you have an 'A' or '32, everything should be coming around at this point. All you need to do from there is to decide how close is good enough.

I spent (too) many hours doing mine during the initial build up - then blew the entire car apart for paint. I reassembled it as close to exactly the same way as it came apart, tweaked it, it looked fine, now after sitting a few months, have to redo it - and another XX number of hours to go

A '33 or '34 Ford, 34_40 can share his pain. He and I probably looked at 50 of that vintage last Saturday at NSRA Burlington and every one as far as I could see had something that was off. Then there are '40 Fords -----

thanks!! pete

Fitting hoods can take anywhere from a few hours to few days, a lot of great info on fitting them here just rember it will take some time and sometimes after all the shims were added and still nothing you just have to pull everthing back off and get a fresh start. but nothing looks better than a great looking front end.

Rex

One of the worst jobs i can think of on my 32 the Rootleib hood had to be trimmed at the front and metal added at the rear. Not really their fault as they didn't seem to fit that well on standard 32's
I set the grill where i want it and go from there, as the others have said it can take anywhere between 30-60hrs to get it looking right

Here in the UK some builders just space the grill up or down till right, Not my idea of doing the job properly though.

Originally Posted by roadster32

One of the worst jobs i can think of on my 32 the Rootleib hood had to be trimmed at the front and metal added at the rear. Not really their fault as they didn't seem to fit that well on standard 32's
I set the grill where i want it and go from there, as the others have said it can take anywhere between 30-60hrs to get it looking right

Here in the UK some builders just space the grill up or down till right, Not my idea of doing the job properly though.

I often wonder if I had bought a 3 piece if that would have been easier. A buddy aligned his 'glass '32, kinda, then had Rootleib build a 3 piece version from a template.

Some of the '30/'31s and '32's I've seen look like folks just gave up and said to themselves - close enough is as good as it will get.

Yep we have the same kind of people here
Strangely enough i've fitted quite a few 3 piece hoods and they seem much easier

Originally Posted by IC2

I often wonder if I had bought a 3 piece if that would have been easier. A buddy aligned his 'glass '32, kinda, then had Rootleib build a 3 piece version from a template.

Some of the '30/'31s and '32's I've seen look like folks just gave up and said to themselves - close enough is as good as it will get.

How much space should there be form the Grille shell to the frame? I spaced mine up about 3/4 inch.