53 Hood brace

[BubbaBear]

Has anyone fabricated a brace or does any vendor sell one that fits the hoods to prevent potential problems. I can see where the weak point would be. Any suggestions before I have a problem?

[Tom Bredehoft]

I've been using mine (stock) for (off and on) 51 years, with no problems. Those potential problems can drive you crazy. Ignore them.

[rockne10]

Are you talking about the prop rod or the tube that runs across the front of the hood?

[BubbaBear]

Along the sides. It appears it would be easy to bend there because it is a stress point when opened and closed. Maybe I am imagining a problem that doesn't occur.

[Mike Sal]

Once a hood has been kinked in the back corner.....how do you go about fixing it? My '55 president sedan has a "slight" bend on the passenger side.

I plan to add a torsion bar to the hinges (gleaned from my '56 sedan parts car) to help the hinges stay lined up, but need to get the hood straightened first.
thanks,
Mike Sal

[rockne10]

On the '53 Coupe, and other models, you need to pull the hood forward as you open it. Classic Enterprises has produced a reinforcing plate for the rear corners to help with this issue.

[Nelsen Motorsports]

None of my hoods have corner problems, but on the side they did get kinked so we popriveted a homade piece of angle iron to it and got one of the dent magic guys to bang it out.

[sweetolbob]

Has anyone fabricated a brace or does any vendor sell one that fits the hoods to prevent potential problems. I can see where the weak point would be. Any suggestions before I have a problem?

Bubbabear

Now to answer your quote. Yes I have fabricated that brace for the sides of my hood. It's 1/8" plate cut to fit the hood contour on each side after I repaired the carnage from the bent hood corners.

I just made the brace, drilled 1/4" holes along the hood sides to Mig/spot weld it to the hood on the inside of the hood, ground down the welds and finished it. Hard to see unless you look hard.

Bob

[gordr]

Bubba, I know the area you're referring to, and yes, the hoods can be damaged there, particularly if the proper opening/closing ritual is not observed.

I think a "quick-fix" would be to use a conduit bender, and bend a piece of half or three-quarter inch electrical conduit to the same curve as the hood edge, place it in the channel at the edge of the hood, and plug-weld it into place by welding through holes drilled in the edge of the hood. These welds would be all out of sight with the hood closed, and could be ground smooth in any case.

What would be really trick for a custom car would be to "box" the hood edges. In other words, close off the open "U" channel forming the hood edge by welding a narrow strip of metal across the opening to make it into a 4-sided tube. This would entail welding to the underside of the top surface, so some metal finishing would definitely be required. Might be best to use a TIG welder for this stunt. But done really nicely, the finsihed hood would be as pretty on the bottom side as on the top, and way stronger than stock.

[skyway]

You can also bend a piece of 3/8's round stock to match the curve of the hood,
and braze it inside the edge of the hood. Its a pretty much invisible fix.

[Mike Sal]

So, with the side secure, what's the best way to fix the back corner that's bent? Mine's not too bad, but don't want to make it worse.
Mike Sal

[Jeff_H]

Fixing bent corners.....

The hood on my '53 was kinked badly in both corners with a jagged crack several inches long on one side as well.

After welding the crack up what I did to straighten it so it matched the cowl and fenders again was:

1. Cut slots in the brace on the back side with a 4" angle grinder with a cut off disk in it so that the ends were "floppy". The cut was centered where the worst of the kink parallel to the cowl was.
2. Tack weld small cable turn-buckles across the cut and put the hood on the car.
3. Adjust turn buckles to pull/push the hood corners up and down until the back edge of the hood matched the curve of the cowl again.
4. Tack weld the cuts and remove turn buckles.
5. Check fit and weld cut shut.
6. Repeat the process with a cut fore/aft along the fender where the kink was there.

After all this was done I installed the CE corner braces which make a huge difference in the stiffness "feel" of the hood.

The kinks often are diagonal across the corners so it needed to be fixed in 2 directions. In my case after fixing this, I had deformed sheet metal still that needed hammer work and some filler to level out. Its still not perfect and a sharp eyeball can tell but it looks pretty good and most folks don't know.

[Mike Sal]

Very interesting method. did you tack the turn buckles on the top side of the hood (I assume....otherwise how would you get to them to make the adjustment)? The passenger side of mine has a slight bend diagonally across the corner, not bad enough to tear the metal on the sides.
Mike Sal

[Jeff_H]

did you tack the turn buckles on the top side of the hood

Turnbuckles on the bottom since putting them on top would add more damage to the sheet metal. As I recall, I didn't have the hinges attached and simply set the hood in place and lifted it up to tweak the nuts on the 'buckles and set it down again. Trial and error.

Keeping the hinges out of the process allows things to move easier and get the hood fitted. Later on getting those hinges adjusted right is a whole new nightmare.... I had the car in primer and trial fitted the hood and adjusted the hinges. That process was so frustrating that once I had them where I wanted them, I ended up masking the hinges and painted around them rather than take them off and go through that adjustment pain and agony again