[theastronaut]

Starting with the front brace, there was a plate that the hood catch bolted to that also extended up to the emblem holes in the outer skin. The owner wants to delete the emblem and its recess so I cut off the sides that extend up. There was some damage around the emblem area and someone had brazed the inner brace to the outer skin at some point.






The mounting pad for the hood catch bent so I flattened it out.






The safety catch used slide in clip nuts to fasten it to the brace. I flattened out the clip recesses and made a plate with nuts welded to it to clean up the look and make it easier to mount. The clips don't let the base sit flat and they move around whenever you loosen the bolts which makes it harder to adjust accurately. I also welded up the holes for the emblem mounting studs.












The edge that sits against the hood skin was curled and rough. I ran the edge through the planishing hammer to flatten it and pulled tape for a reference to grind back to. Things like this are quick and easy to do while its apart and will make the sanding the high build much easier.










Another area that only takes 5-10 min and makes life a lot easier when sanding primer; the cut outs had rough edges that I flattened with a hammer and dolly.






There are a couple of unused stampings that bigger trucks used for latching the hood that aren't needed.