Ford 8n Hood rust repair

Alan8n

Member
I am need in of repairing my 8n hood. It is rusted out in a couple of spots on the ribs / rolls along the bottom of the hood. The rest of the hood is in pretty good shape. Trying to find an inexpensive donor hood is tending to be very difficult.
I have welded sheet metal before, but only flat "patch panels", with no problem. Since I can't find an inexpensive donor hood I was thinking of making my own patch panels for those rib areas.
I am not a fab expert and have only hand tools so my question is has anyone ever done that, and if so how hard is it to fab. I don't really care how long it would take to fab up a couple of pieces, but am concerned about IF it can be done without any special tools / machines.
Thanks
Alan
 
A few years ago I used my GI Bill to go
to auto body school. During my 1st year
I brought in a 9N hood with the very
same issues you have. You don't need
fancy equipment to do this. Just get
creative in forming the shape you want.
You can start with a vice to hold the
patch and hammer a curve. Then you can
use a small diameter pipe to form the
remainder of the curves. Just look
around your shop for something with the
shape you want and take your time to
hammer it into shape. I hope this helps.
 

I made and welded in a lot of sheet metal patches on and old car, with only a pair of bending pliers and a 4.5 inch grinder. I wouldn't want to be trying to make patch pieces for that hood. A repop hood is only around $350.00.
 
Both sides of my 8N hood had bad rust near the front of the sides. Looked into getting it repaired, way too much money so I bought a "repo". The new hood has no FORD on the sides and didn't fit. It took many hours of cutting and reshaping to make it work and it still is only "OK". Gas tank mounts too low and area around the dash needed to be cut and reshaped. Should have spent the time or money to try to fix the original.
 
(quoted from post at 08:29:49 01/04/19) Both sides of my 8N hood had bad rust near the front of the sides. Looked into getting it repaired, way too much money so I bought a "repo". The new hood has no FORD on the sides and didn't fit. It took many hours of cutting and reshaping to make it work and it still is only "OK". Gas tank mounts too low and area around the dash needed to be cut and reshaped. Should have spent the time or money to try to fix the original.

Tom, that is good to know. I take it the seller didn't want to make good on it?
 
if you've got time, the best way to see if you can do it is take something easy to bend and shape, single sided cardboard, your last drink can ect, decide how much area you need to cut off the hood to get past the rust, if you don't cut the rust out, everything you do will be for naught, the thing will continue to rust at a slow rate and in a year or 2 maybe more it will show up again, if possible use the cut piece as a pattern on the bench to make the new piece out of cardboard or aluminum can, something easy to work with, once you have the piece, and this may take several tries, its a learning process, then you can transfer that to a piece of metal to actually make the replacement part, for metal the old dryer or washing machine in the back yard alley ect, makes a nice piece,the metal is about the right thickness and it welds nice when prepped. cut what you need out of a flat panel, if you need the piece to have a edge bent on it, look at the appliance body again, the edges of the machine have a nice machine formed tight bend to it, aint that cool? use it if needed. surly you have a friend with one of those little 110 v wire feed welders, you can get him to spot-weld the new piece into the hood,a old magnet can hold the piece properly in place for the first tacks, for a few drinks maybe, remember to skip around the piece to spot weld to keep the heat from warping the hood or the piece, once you get it all spot welded solid then grind the weld smooth and body work it for paint,
 

Thanks for that info. I was afraid of that happening and really wanted to repair mine. Luckily I found an original non script hood in good shape at a reasonable price and will be using that as my donor hood
Thanks Alan
 

Thanks for that info. I was afraid of that happening and really wanted to repair mine. Luckily I found an original non script hood in good shape at a reasonable price and will be using that as my donor hood
Thanks Alan
 

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