There has been a lot of suspense building as the two bumpsides near completion. I'm sure when Grant and I finally pull up to the showdown both of our trucks are going to be scrutinized down to the very last detail. With this in mind, I knew that one of the last things I wanted to have happen was to roll up to the showgrounds with big stress cracks appearing on my hood. The next step was to call in the big guns and find out if there was any new technology on the market that could minimize the possibility of an embarrassing failure. Sure enough, when I called Tom Prewitt at Resurrection Customs & Hot Rods in Fullerton, California, he informed me that SEM Products had an entire line of heavy-duty adhesives intended specifically to address a hybrid project like I was about to undertake.
The first thing I did when the Thunderbolt scoop arrived from Speedway Motors was to immediately remove it from the box and place it on top of my '72's hood to see how it looked and note any alterations that would be needed to make it fit properly. For the most part, the Thunderbolt scoop lies perfectly flat--until one looks at the front of the F-100 hood, where it is shorter than a car hood with the curvature descending faster. In order to make sure the Thunderbolt scoop looks right on a '67-'72 F-100 hood it was necessary to cut out the raised steel center section that vaguely resembles a T-Bird hoodscoop, and then fabricate new sheetmetal.
As we are dealing with body-working both steel and fiberglass, we will cover steel in this issue and cover the fiberglass portion in next month's issue. CCT
Before preparing the hood...
Before preparing the hood to accept the Speedway Motors Thunderbolt hoodscoop, it was necessary to pound out the dents. Resurrection Customs & Hot Rod's metal finisher, Matt Means, started on the top of the hood and then flipped it over to reach the underside.
Matt stated that a person...
Matt stated that a person has to be real careful not to grind the sheetmetal to thin while running the grinder over the crown of the dent.
The Thunderbolt scoop was...
The Thunderbolt scoop was placed exactly where I wanted to have it mounted and then a pattern was drawn around it with a Sharpie. Matt then ground the paint down to the bare metal in a wide swath.
Matt metal-worked out most...
Matt metal-worked out most of the heavy dents before he was ready to cut out the offending portion of the stock hood, the part that wouldn't allow the Thunderbolt scoop to sit flat.
Matt used a 4-inch cut-off...
Matt used a 4-inch cut-off disc on a die grinder with an extra backing he added to get a truer cut.