67 hood on a 69-72 LFD style

[Rokcrln]

LFD's How-To
67 hood to a 69-72 grill shell!

Well for starters this is not a new idea that I came up with just a mod I wanted to do and document for anyone else who may want to give it a try. First thing you will need is a 67-68 hood as well as the front hood brace out of a 69-72 hood. The 67-68 hood is about 1.5" longer than it's newer brother but hte hindge mounting points are the same so you just need to shorten up the front and change out the front brace were the latch mounts (atleast that is the way I did mine).

I first took a 70 hood off my 2WD Blazer and cut the front out of it because the rest of it was in very bad "Bondo" shape. I then took a 68 hood I had in storage and removed the front brace from it like I did the 70. I chose to cut the hoods along the ridge of the front brace because this is a very easy section to align and weld since both hoods are the same in this area and welding on a ridge like this will produce very little if any warpage. I did lay out my cuts and I cut the 68 hood right down the top center of the ridge while I cut the 70 hood a bit past center of the ridge to give me som room to play with and trim later for a good fit.

[Rokcrln]

Next I used a 4" x .035 cut off wheel to remove the front braces of both hoods. I cut the front edge off the 68 right at the front edge and the 70 about a 1/2" up the front lip of the hood. This will give you plenty to trim back on the 68 hood and a good starting point to fine tune the contack area of the 70 front lip. I then had to remove some small pieces of the 68 front side edges of the hood so the 70 brace would fit inside the 68 hood. Save these pieces you cut out so you can trim them and weld them back in later. I used the holes in the ridge of the 68 hood to line up the 70 brace and I used sheet metal screws to hold it in place for now. Then i fit the hood back on the truck to see how things lined up at this point. I liked the fit so I traced a line right at the edge of the grill shell to trim off next.

[Rokcrln]

Once I was happy with the fit I removed the hood and trimmed the extra metal off and again test fit the hood (are you starting to see a patern yet). This time I was looking to see how the gap was between the hood front edge and the grill shell. Keep in mind the stock gap of a 69-72 is not very tight to start with and trying to match that gap will make life alot easier. I wanted to test my self and close that gap way up so I was going for about 1/8 to 3/16". To get this tight of a gap I trimmed the hood bback to about a 1/4" gap because I knew I would hem the edge with an 1/8" tig welding rod. This will give you a good edge to weld to and help keep the edge from warping as bad because you will have the rod to help soak up the heat.

But lets not get ahead of our selves. If you like the way the front edge fits it is now time to check the profile from the side and you may need to trim the 70 hood brace front edge until the front edge of the 68 sit down just right. Once that is done and you are happy with all the gaps and fitment of the hood it is time to tack weld the brace to the front edge of the 68. Once that is done then re-install the hood latch and give it a try. If it all works good then pull off the hood (yes again) and we will cut and weld the inner structure together before finishing the front edge.

[Rokcrln]

Now set the hood upside down so you can get to the ridge of the brace were the two meet. Since I liked how it all lined up I knew I wanted to weld the brace ridge to the hood ridge right were it was. All I wanted to do was make it all flush and look like nothing had been done. So I took my grinder with a 4" cut off wheel and just cut right down alone the ridge line making sure to cut between the two pieces so they would line right up. Once it was cut and I removed all scrap cut offs I then cleaned up the two pieces and tacked welded them together. Just to be safe I put the hood back on and tested it again. All was good so I pulled it back off and welded up the ridge line but only a few inches at a time to keep the heat down so to avoid warpage. I themn ground it down and the inner section was done.

[Rokcrln]

Now guess what I did next... Yep I put the hood back on and started fitting the 1/8" wire edge to the hood and grill shell. I used some magnits and clamps to hold the wire were I thought it would fit best and tacked it in place in only a few spots. I then pulled off the clamps and magnits and shut the hood and checked the gap. I had to cut a few tacks loose and re-align the wire in a few spots to get it just how I wanted it. I checked it so many times from all sides and angles to make sure it was just right. I also used straite edges to make sure it was right. Once it was all lined up and I had tacked it every few inches I pulled it back off again to weld up.

I used my Tig to finish up the welding of the front edge only because I need more practice with it. A mig would have worked great and been much faster as well. Just make sure you only weld a bout a 1/2" at a time and more around alot to keep the heat down.

[Rokcrln]

Once it was all welded and ground down I fit it again so I could fine tune the front edge. If you have any tight spots you can grind abit and keep testing the fit. If you have too big of a gap you will need to add some weld or a small piece of rod and then grind it down to fit.

[Rokcrln]

Now before body work starts you need to fit the corners back on and fit them to the new inner structure while also making sure they follow the outer edge of the hood. I did not take any pic's of this stage but if you have made it this far then you won't need any help figuring it out. Just take your time and trim in small amounts untill you get the fit you want.

[Rokcrln]

Now you can start doing any body wor that is needed. I wanted to do mine in Lead free body soilder only because I was going for such a tight gap that I knew I would end up with Bondo right on the edge and it would end up getting chipped off after paint. So I felt Lead free was the way to go plus I wanted to play just a bit. Once it was all shaped and blended I did add a slight skim coat with filler, sanded 90% of that off and primmed it.

Now it is on the truck and i feel it looks great! I love how smooth it looks but how stock it looks at the same time. Thank you for following along with me and I lok forward to the next write up!

Just as a side note this took me about 25hrs to complete but some of that time was extra because of the Tig welding and lead work. But even at that I would put this hood in the $1500 range to have a shop do this for you if you can fine one willing to do it.

Kevin
LFD inc.

[Rokcrln]

Hey guys thanks for the props! But really if you can cut metal and tack weld than you can do this mod. All a weld is, is a bunch of tack welds and all the master full skills you see of making it all fit is just alot of trial and trimming untill it fits how you want it. Yes I have been doing this stuff for along time but remember when I did my first mod it was my first mod. So even I started not knowing what the heck I was doing. Don't every be afraid to give somthing a try because their is nothing you can't do just alot you have not done yet!

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[Rokcrln]

Originally Posted by gringoloco

Hey Rok- Looks awesome! I've been mulling this over in my head a bit and have a few questions for ya if you don't mind...

1) Instead of trimming the inner structure, why not drill out the spot welds and swap over the entire front section?
No you can not do that because the 69-72 hood is much taller and so is it's suport. The top flat section is very simular but the end is very different. Take a tape to both and you will see the differance.

2) If you were not going for such a tight gap, do you think you could flange the bit of the late hood left and weld the early hood to it where they meet? You might even be able to get away with using panel adhesive.

You might but keep in mind th e69-72 hood is almost vertical at the front lip so it will not meet real well with the early hood but I am sure some hammer work can fix most of that. Personaly I like welding and have not used panel adhesive so I could not say. I am old shcool, I like to melt stuff

Just some thoughts, thanks for any help you can offer. Again, this looks great!

No problem!
Kevin
LFD Inc.

[Rokcrln]

Originally Posted by fortytwoandrising

My Dad is a sheetmetal QA guy I should ask him if he knows how to weld.

That would be a great place to start
I am self tought for the most part, I started at about 13 or 14yrs old. I then went thru the Lathers union 4yr program and was certified in stick (that class went fast) and years later cert in mig as well but the most usfull way is to just weld. I still read books and buy DVDs from people that I feel are way better than I am hopping to learn a few tricks that I can use in my shop.
The easiest way to go is Mig welding with solid core wire and a 25/75 mix on your gas. This will give the best results and you will learn faster this way. The best tip I was tought by an old guy is to always start off too hot and then turn your temp setting down untill it is just right. Because you can have great looking welds with not enough penitration but if you start hot you will have penitration and a good weld when turned down just a bit.

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[Rokcrln]

Originally Posted by gringoloco

Well, I found out that the inner structure on an aftermarket hood is entirely different from a stock hood. I need to find a cheap stock 69-72 hood to hack up...

This is good to know! I guess it make all my extra hoods worth even more now

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[Rokcrln]

Originally Posted by graverobberATL

I was looking at mine earlier today and there's about 1.5 to 2" at the back of the hood that could maybe be cut off but you'd have to redo the front hood bolts and redrill the back holes in the hinge. Would the front line up do you think? Anyone?

No it would not because the front edge of a 67-68 sits lower than the front edge of the 69-72. So if you just slide it back the front would need to lift up so the entire thing would be WAY off.

Kevin
LFD Inc.