[This message has been edited by Skybax (edited 01-21-2022).]

The car sat in a garage for most of the time before I bought it. The last two or so years it was parked on a concrete driveway in a Seattle neighborhood. I did spend a few hours picking pine needles out of cracks and joints of the body work. Luckily the underside was painted and has no significant rust that I can find. Yes, paint is next but it will always stay a notchie. I did put the GT nose on it and the wing on the back. I don't plan on adding a GT skin to the car. The previous owner was going to put the GT rear on it but I decided to have it look similar to the Indy pace car. I will paint it this spring, probably in the same red color.

What I have been doing the last couple of weeks is putting V8-Archie's Warber hood vent in the hood. I've just about finished the body work but it will stay in primer until I prep the complete hood and the rest of the car. Here are some photos of the vent installation. It wasn't difficult but I only worked on it about 3 hours per day so it took about a week to get to this point. Only thing with body work is the dust. So with fiberglass I don a 3M P100 mask, goggles and ear muffs when using my angle grinder. I've got a Milwaukee and it is very loud. For finish sanding I use a Makita 5" Orbital with 120/220 grit. The body filler is Evercoat Vette Panel Adhesive/Filler. The real trick to body work is plan on many hours of prep time so it will look good.

I did have a second scrap hood that I experimented with first to determine the location of the cutout. I found the inner frame to be different from the hood on the car. It made a little difference for the mounting of the vent flanges, but nothing difficult.

I followed Archie's instructions for locating the vent. It needs to be 9.5" to 10.0" from the hood lip to the notch or you will have interference problems.


Next using an angle grinder cut through the hood skin only (about 3/16") no deeper or the frame will be weakened.


The skin is simply pried off. It is a little bit stubborn, but just keep prying.


Next the frame is cleaned up and trimmed of the old adhesive and the frame cut to clear the vent.


Now the hood just drops in and the fit is checked. The edges of the joint are beveled to provide room for the filler.


I added flanges to the bottom of the remaining hood skin so there is a positive vertical location for the vent to fit on all four sides.


With the flanges in place I was able to trim the bottom of the vent to have the surface be flush with the hood.


Time to get serious, The vent was resined in place to all the frame and flange contact points. I used weights to make certain all the edges were firmly in place on the frame and flanges. Otherwise there would be more grinding and cutting and dust. This was allowed to sit overnight.


On goes the first coat of filler. It hardens in 5-10 minutes depending on the amount of hardener used.


I waited overnight and then sanded the primer using 120 grit on the orbital.


Then a coating of good primer (from an auto body supply, NOT Rustoleum) was applied to show the problems.


Next was to prep the inside for a layer of glass cloth. This was applied in three strips. In this photo the rearmost section was sanded and the voids around the vent were filled using expanding foam. This foam was then cut off and profiled to make a transition from the vent to the frame.


The first strip of cloth is on place and allowed to harden before trimming the foam and applying the remaining two strips.


After sanding and cleanup the interior was shot with a satin black (same as used on the cradle). It will need more cleanup when I remove the hood for overall painting.


The surface of the hood was marked up for filling in the low spots and sanding the high spots. Actually this was done in two steps with the last one to contour the front of the hood and vent for better appearance. The place marked "dip" needed more than I used to look & feel right. To do this sanding a "flat" sander is used. Just a hard rubber tool or piece of wood to back the paper will sand only the high points. And your fingers will elp you in feeling the highs & lows too.


A few hours of sanding later the second coat begins to look & feel better. This has had a coating of adhesion enhancer that gives it the glossy look.


Another coat of primer brings out all the imperfections that will be dealt with later, but it is beginning to look like it should.


Still have more cleanup to do, but this will wait for the final body prep.


This is the filler I used it is a bit more flexible than others and is similar hardness as the panel materinal so it sands evenly and feathers very well.


I've also trimmed and installed the trunk carpet to fit the shallower rear trunk and it looks ok.


Finally I am making progress on the misfire. I bought three new plug coils and installed them a few days ago. That made a big difference in the performance. I decided to buy another three which should show up next week. They are Spectra Premium C-761 exact replacements. Bought 3 from Amazon and they were $22 each, total with tax was $72 (I'm a Prime member so no shipping charge). Went back to buy the remainder and the price had jumped to $92! All I can say is beware of greedy Amazon sellers. I found the same exact parts on RockAuto for $61 including shipping.

[This message has been edited by MikesFirstFiero (edited 01-21-2022).]

[This message has been edited by MikesFirstFiero (edited 01-27-2022).]