Hood repair

[Huskyburns]

The 51 cub I have has a chunk cut out of the hood by the previous owner; because rather than getting a shorter alternator belt, he had the alternator sticking out of the hood. Is there a tool out there to form the 3 ribs or would it be best to find a donor hood to get a patch out of?

[ricky racer]

Place an ad in the Vine for a salvage hood or possibly a section of hood. Post a picture of the section of hood you need replaced. Someone might hook you up....

[Dale Finch]

Raymond Durban did that repair on a hood a couple (or more) years ago at DSCF. I believe he used a piece cut out of a donor hood and it turned out real nice.

[UK-Cub]

Not much help to you I'm afraid but might be useful to others.

My Cub came with an alternator fitted and to accomadate it the hood had been pulled out.

I made a new bracket to lift the alternator, rather than swing it out, as there seemed to be plenty of vertical room. Similar could be done with a spacer under original bracket plus new fasteners.

[xraycajun]

I was able to get a patch of The Vine Classifieds. I have a friend who is skilled with sheet metal that has agreed to weld it up for me. Good Luck!

[staninlowerAL]

Here's Raymond Durban working his majic:

Thanks, Raymond.

[DRaymond]

I apologize but I lost track of the question regarding patching a cut out area in a Cub's hood. During the restoration of my 48 FCUB (Marie) I removed the belt driven hydraulic pump which left a rectangular hole in the hood about 7" long by 3.25" high in the tripple rib area below the generator oiler holes.

As part of the restoration I planned to install a reconditioned Touch Control for hydraulics and convert to a 12V Electrical system. The 12V single wire alternator will fit completely inside the confines of a stock hood which allowed me to plug the old belt drive hydraulic pump hole with a flush patch. Because the stock hood metal is so heavy/thick I could not find a metal working shop that could replicate the three ribs and their spacing in patch material so knew I would have to get patch material from another Cub hood. I found a junk hood that had an area good enough to cut a patch from in a tractor salvage yard and got it for $25. This shows the salvaged hood with the patch area ground down to bare metal and cutting lines marked with a sharpie. If the ends of the ribs were needed as part of a patch you would have to pay attention to the hand of the hood’s side L or R. I was lucky as the area I needed was between the ends of the ribs. Note that you can see that someone previously had made a cut out in the opposite side of the salvaged hood.

Here you can see magnets holding the patch I am fitting in the hole in my good hood. Take care grinding the material so that you can have a gap just large enough to allow clamps to be installed that will hold everything together for welding.

Once the patch was finished I held it in place with a set of clamps from Harbor Freight. Because I was not confident in my welding skills I took the hood to a local shop that did hot rod work and had it welded in place. The shop was able to do the job for only $50 because I had done all the prep work to get it ready for them to weld and grind.

I AM NOT A BODY & FENDER GUY AND NOT VERY PATIENT HOWEVER The real time I spent on the hood was in preparing it for final surface prep, priming and painting. The work involved hammering and grinding out the minor hood dents, imperfections and scratches and getting the patch welded seams finish ground to the point where the whole hood was ready for the final paint prep work and painting. After final paint was applied and dry I was really happy with the way the hood turned out. I could not see where the hood had been patched even in the reflection of light and the only way you could tell it had been patched was to look on the underside of the hood.

Sorry this has been so windy.

[tomcat]

I can’t tell much about the clamps but I am going to need a set, do they have a number or name