Phase IV begins -Exterior painting. This update is the last of the metal work the car needed before beginning sanding and primer.
The gaps on the doors and trunk on this example are ideal and very consistent. As a reminder this car still has the original paint. As you can imagine, the clear coat is totally gone on the top surfaces. The hood gaps on the fender sides and the nose panel were ideal and consistent at about 5. to 5.5 millimeters. The trailing edge gap at the base of the windscreen was comically large with a gap of nearly 3/4ths of an inch in a few areas. This is slightly risky, I've done this once before on a Mercedes Pagoda hood in aluminum and the project was a success. Task: grow the hood in length by adding more material on to the back edge. I was hopeful with this hood in mild steel it would be easier. Original plan is to keep these cardboard patterns on the car during the entire effort. The patterns lay over the hood and overlap to show and expose with a proper gap would look like. Its foldable and you can go back and forth working the area and then folding it back in place for a ref. check. See attached short video clip.
Template is a quick reference on how much material needs to be added to achieve the ideal gap
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We ground off both sides on the trailing edge and ensured we had a clean welding surface. We started with just laying down lots of wire. Juan Tobias (the welder) had the
exceptional idea to fabricate new strips in the exact thickness of the hood and fit them to the edge. Then weld them in. It took HOURS off the project and gave us great working material. Juan did the welding and I tried to stay ahead of him fabricating each curved strip (about 6 inches long) on the band saw with a quick finish grind. We got into a good grove and covered the entire back edge in about 2.5 hours.
Juan Tobias has a massive arsenal of grinders, sanders, etc. and it took another 30 minutes of grinding the top and bottom sides smooth. Then another 30 minutes of carefully grinding in the 'new' back edge. First test fit back on the car revealed we had area requiring a little more welding. The second test fit was a charm. Done. An exceedingly productive day on the project. Top down view shows the new gap. Looks factory, but its not.