So we took a shot at heat shrinking the hood to try and tighten up the steel, but no luck. We just don't have the experience or knowledge when it comes to working sheet metal. We would heat up a spot until it's red, then use a shrinking dolly underneath and use a hammer on top and then quench it. There was hope on the passenger side, but we kept getting high spots on the driver side and seemed to be chasing the oil can around. I can't remember if the hood was this bad in these areas when we bought the truck or not, but I have a level of confidence in the blaster that he knows how to not warp large areas of sheet metal. We all know that these hoods lack rigidity and I think that's the primary issue. In this case, with our lack of skills, we decided to throw in the towel, cut our losses, and order a new hood. Even if we could have made it work, we would have been left with a really ugly underside and it could have been covered with insulation, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to go through all the filler work and cover up that ugliness. Felt a little beat by the outcome, but relieved in a way.
We pulled the bedsides back out and are resuming filler work on them. We still have a few months of warm weather left, but quite a ways to go on the bed so we're trying to focus on bodywork.
What I've learned on this truck is this: if you want to have a truck that is all GM sheet metal, you're going to have to spend a lot of time and money fixing original sheet metal or tracking down panels that are in good shape. Or, you can buy new sheet metal and deal with the fitment challenges but avoid a lot body work.
