David Sr,
I am going to have eat come crow here! My truck is a 55/1st 4400. The hood is in the basement blasted and primed. I just went down and looked at the rear hood brace. There is no material between the brace and the skin of the hood. There is no trace of anything and I didn't remove anything (that I remember).
The skin is tensioned so that about a 1/4" room exists between bracket and sheetmetal. I remember a thread about this years ago and I thought I recalled hearing about a tar impregnated pad running side to side that was a buffer between the skin and the reinforcing bar. I swear that I have seen that gooey pad on some AD rigs.
Stuart
