Lightweight Lift-Off Hood - El Cheapo, Part 5
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The last step before paint was to lock the hood down and trim the cosmetically critical front edge of the fender. This relied heavily on our ability to simply eyeball the right look, but we used masking tape to assure a straight cutline. We trimmed it with the cutoff wheel while the hood was mounted to the car, smoothed the edge with sandpaper, and did a pretty dang good job if we do say so ourselves. Since all the Dzus buttons were in place, we also drilled the 1/8-inch holes (using the body of each fastener as a guide) that will later be used to rivet them to the hood. Full race, huh? As with the rest of our El Camino, Gonzalez Auto Body handled the Hugger Orange paint. Owner Gus Gonzalez advised that fiberglass hoods should only be block-sanded by hand and not with a machine to prevent waviness in the soft material. Even so, Gus agreed that the Harwood finish was exceptionally nice. The last thing we had to do was clean out the holes we drilled for riveting the Dzus fasteners to the hood, then pop-rivet them in place using the aluminum-bodied rivets provided in the Harwood kit. It’s important to use the aluminum ones because steel models will pull through the fiberglass. If you get the rivets mixed up, sort them out with a magnet (as you know, it won’t stick to aluminum). View Related Article
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