Hood - anyone split before?

[Banana]

Have a 1970 Challenger hood. The outer skin is nearly perfect, but the inner skin need's a good amount of rust repair in hard to reach areas. Lot's of pitting hole welding and some small patch panels required

Anyone split apart a hood? I assume the spot welds are all around the perimeter. Looks like in-between the panels there are blobs of putty/adhesive.

Thought it would be much easier to repair the inner panel apart, then attempt to put the hood back together and re-create the welds and adhesive blobs.

I know there are decent repro's, but always worth saving original 1970 metal if possible. If splitting is way too difficult, I'll do the repairs with the hood intact.

Any advice appreciated

[BFM_Cuda]

I've never split one before, but I guess you are not out a lot if you try it and need to change direction later....

Before you split the skins, I would drill 1/8" alignment holes through the spot welded lips around the perimeter. Then you can use clecos to rejoin and align the pieces when you are ready to put it back together. On the back edge, you cant drill through it, so I would take some measurements and line it up that way.

I think the big thing is to keep it level and supported when taking it apart and going back together.

Not sure how you would cut the glue/sealer in the middle of hood. Maybe you can use a thin cutting wire to saw through it?  I wouldn't pull or pry it apart.

To be honest, finding a replacement OEM hood isn't that hard, and you will have a lot of time in it repairing the one you have.

Good luck, share photos if you go for it...   

[tparker]

I did this for the trunk lid. It wasn't all that hard but I did run into a couple issues though. Here is a video that gave me the courage to tackle it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH8aphu8-L8

If I recall it was spot welded and I had to drill them out. Then I had to carefully bend the lip up to separate the pieces. Then I cleaned it all up and put it back together. I can't recall what I used in between the pieces, maybe some seam filler material.

The issue came when putting it back together. The fold on the front or rear edge cracked on the edges. I had to weld it up, when I welding skills weren't all that good. I over welded material then ground off the excess, which took a few tries. But it came out pretty good I think.

Hopefully the hood won't be too hard.

[torredcuda]

Good idea on the cleco holes to re-align it back up. I`ve never done a hood but it`s really not much different than a door skin, the main thing is to have a nice flat.level surface to set it on when welding back together.