The New Hood
by brian @ 18:01:53 - [perma-link]I cut louvers into one of the spare hoods today. Having almost
perfected my technique on the black hood, these ones came out pretty
good. I cut the straight lines at the forward edge of the drilled
holes, so the louvers will bend further into the engine compartment
and stick up less. The red stripes follow the raised "cowl" on the
passenger side of the hood, roughly mirrored onto the driver side. Painting it was quite an adventure. My one can of red was only good
for one really thin coat before it ran out. I drove up to the store
to get more. One store didn't carry the Duplicolor brand, and I
wanted the exact color I was already using (I painted the skidplate
red, too). The next store carried Duplicolor, but the paint shelf was
pretty bare. I finally found 2 cans of "Cherry Red" at Fred Meyer,
but when I got to the counter I didn't have my wallet. After a round
trip home to get it, I finally bought the 2 cans of red and 2 cans of
semi-gloss black. I'm going to leave the strips of tape along the side of the red, and
let it dry overnight. Tomorrow I'll mask the red and paint the center
and outer sections black. If all goes well, it should be left with 2
thin grey stripes on either side of the red where the tape is now. I
hope it looks good (or at least good enough to rally). I haven't yet bent the louvers, so they're just flat slats right now.
I wanted to paint them right after cutting them, since the ones on the
black car are already showing rust, after just a few days (though it
did rain). The paint also hides the edges, so they shouldn't stand
out as much, and the couple of rough spots where the cutting wheel
didn't go exactly straight shouldn't be as noticeable as the jagged
cuts on the black hood were.
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