New Hood For the Ranger

I need to say that I've never attempted anything like this before, so here is what I've learned so far.

Fit is everthing. My first attempt at putting on the louver panel was a bad idea, too much body work would have been required to make it look right so it was cut off.

The second time I made the panel fit nearly perfect. And attached it. It should have fit better because the scoop warped slightly. NOT because of heat. The louver panel is made of stronger metal than the scoop, so the scoop conformed to the panel.

Once we realized what was causing the problem, we reshaped the louver panel with well placed 2 x 4's and some small body hammers. The scoop went back to its natural shape almost immediately.

Small sections of flange was left so that I could use screws to hold the panel in place. I'm not a metal worker (I'm a math teacher) so I do not have a lot of different clamps. The screws have been removed and the holes weld shut.

After grinding down the welds, I realize that VERY LITTLE body filler will be needed to finsh the scoop.

I will spend alot more time on fit, before the scoop is welded to the hood.

I've learned a lot so far, this is one really cool project.

 

The scoop is officially part of the hood. We really got alot done this weekend. We still have alot to do, but we are making progress









The next update will be two or three weeks from now. I've got alot of stuff that needs to get done so the Ranger hood will be on hold temporarily. I'll work on it some more during Spring Break. My target for Spring Break is finish up the welding and start on putting the SVO ducting back on.

 

Well, I had some things come up and was not able to work on the hood until today. We finished welding the scoop to the hood and started on the body work. So far everything is on target and everything is going smooth.

We decided to attach the hood to the truck and see where we are and what still needs to be done



Now for the body work, because so much time was spent on fit, body work will be simple and really easy. In fact after grinding down the welds, we saw how little filler would be needed to finish out the scoop.



We went over it with a DA with 80 grit. Shot a little cheap rattle can primer on it to see where we were at. And we LIKED what we saw.



Now to start on the ducting



Now we still have a long way to go, but we are getting it done