[fordSR]

I hope some of you sheet metal guys can help me out here? I have a two piece hood from an old Chevy truck which originally had a hinge down the middle. I cut out the hinge and welded the two hood halves together with a butt joint and stitch weld method and a wire welder, but here's the problem. The hood has some pretty serious waves and distortion from the weld heat, way to much to float with body filler. OK so I'm not a welder, but my question is, if I cut a strip out of the middle of the hood cutting away the weld seam and about two inches of metal on each side of the weld will the rest of the hood return to it's original shape? My theory is the stress causing the metal to distort came from the welding heat so if I remove the metal around the weld area the rest of the hood will relax back into shape. Then maybe I can find a real welder to weld in a repair strip. Is this a good theory or wishful thinking? I really need to fix this one, these old hoods are hard to find.

Thanks for your help

[astroracer]

There is a lot of info on this site about this. Do a few searches under warpage or heat shrinking and read the threads. You can fix this yourself but you need to get a grasp on the process before we try to talk you through it.
Mark

[starquest]

I had the same thing happen to me on my door when I shaved the one handle. Call it a mix between poor experience and cheep Japanese steel (ok, maybe it is all poor experience, hehe). Anyway, I cut the patch plate back out right at the weld and the metal pretty much returned to normal. Then I was much more careful and use the 'tack and cool' method to finish the panel shaving.

Good luck,

kev

[HAROLD DAVID LOVETT]

[QUOTE=fordSR]I hope some of you sheet metal guys can help me out here?

Does your hood still fit the truck? If it does what I do is go ahead and sand the welds smooth using a wet towel on the opposite side that you are sanding on, be careful not to heat up the metal or you will do more damage; use your bare hand to feel the temperature of the metal. Do both sides of the hood. Take your time and be sure that you are wearing a restperator and safety glasses. Once you have got the metal smooth, take a 3" X1/32" cutoff wheel (available from use-enco.com for 59 cents each) and cut a relief cut about 6" to 8" on top of the weld that you welded, then take a body hammer and dolly and straighten that area. Look at the crack where you cut and be sure that you still have 1/32 between the to sections of metal, if needed take your cut off wheel and open up the area, try to only allow the cut off wheel to just penitrait the surface of the metal or you may open it up to much. Next take a screwdriver and allineg the to edges till they are even across and tack weld next to the screwdriver, repeat this process the entire length of the panel. It will do best if you have the hood on the truck using the truck as a fixture to ensure proper allignment. Always remember, never weld over 3/8" at one time, thats about three pulls on the mig gun, never weld an area that you can not touch with your bare hand, it's to hot already. You may want to buy you a heat sink jell to assist you in your project such as Hot-Stop, go to hotstop.com. Under no sercumstance would I cut out an area to insert a 2" strip. Try this and if you still have problems you may email me at wildharold@msn.com. Good luck and send me a picture of the finished product. Remember, Take your time