The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Completed Journals 1966 Chevy C-10 Short Stepside -- Step by Step

Next up was the hood. It had some damage when I got the truck but not too much. It had been waiting patiently for me to get around to working on it.

The most oblivious damage was a dent in the right front & a very small patch of rust in the same general area. The hood is a double panel here so hammering the dent out was a little tricky. I used several different pieces of scrap steel to wedge in between the inner panel& the dented area to knock out the dent as much as possible. Then the usual grinding & roughening up off the dent & surrounding area & working in some body filler. It took a while but came out looking OK, imo.

There was a small rust area down where the front panel of the hood mated up to the main hood panel which easily cut out & a small patch panel bent to shape & brazed in place.

I thought I had two more small dents near the center of the hood that I needed to address, but as was working them , I realized that I had a few of the same small hail sized dents that I'd found while doing the roof. Again, nothing serious, just added time & a little more material to the job .

After priming the whole hood with several coats of high build primer, including hand sanding each coat, I thought I was ready to paint the exterior side . I was wiping down the hood one last time prior to prepping for paint & on the front panel between the right parking light & the hood latch area I felt what I thought was some dirt or something. Upto this point I had no clue of any trouble spots other than what I've already described. After getting out a small screw driver & started poking around Found a area of soft (rusted) metal that I had not found up to that point. Out came the grinder with the HF cutting disc for more rust cut out & patch panel install. Hopefully photos will give a better idea of the repair.

Also cleaned up the underside of hood & gave it several coats of rust resistant black paint. Also installed new insulator strips between hood braces & outer hood panel.

Seems like a lot of work to save this hood, but new repo hoods are around 1200 bucks plus shipping now days. Even then , there's no guarantee that it'll be damage free when you get it.