56 hood flex

[56sedandelivery]

So got the front clip on my 56SD on. Now I notice there is quite a bit of flex in the hood when open. In other words when open you can push up on one side and the opposite side dips. The hood is bare with no under hood insulation on it. Is it normal for the hood toe flex like 6-8 inches?

[paul2748]

Are all the braces in place ?

[Daves55Sedan]

To some degree, the '55/'56 hoods flexed a bit when they were new. On my '55 Courier sedan delivery, the hood was so rusty when I first got the car, the hood flex was intolerable to me. I investigated and noticed extremely weak points where the rear brace of the hood met the upper skin. I cut off the old brace and cannibalized another hood that had a structurally sound brace. I cut it off that hood, had it dunked to0 bare metal and painted the underside of it before welding it on to my good hood skin. Another notoriously weak spot on these hoods is at that same brace near the ends where the brace dips down to the spot welds. That corner gets weak from rust and actually cracks, ruining the structural integrity. So you have the spot welds coming loose and those end corners of the brace that need to be inspected.
In the case of my hood, it had both problems, but there wasn't enough good metal left to weld patches on to make it stiff again, so I replaced it.
Ever heard of anybody having to use TWO hoods to make one good one???

[56sedandelivery]

Hood seems to have braces. Where the hinge mounts it has cracked in the past and been welded up. See circles in the pic

Edit just thought of something. On the center brace when I stripped down the under side there was some sort padding between the brace and under side of hood. Could that contribute to the flexing?

[Daves55Sedan]

The factory stapled a heavy layer of roofing felt to the upper side if the braces so tjhat it would be sandwiched between the top of the brace and the bottom of the hood. You should be able to see those staples.
If the padding is gone, I would try to cut out a piece of roofing felt and shove it under the brace.
But I see some major damage to that rear brace where it looks like somebody cut out about a 4" section of it and welded in a new piece. There can't be too many reasons for this other than a rust-through which would have sacrificed the integrity of the structure. Also, the repair seems to have warped the hood slightly, which may not be a big problm once the hood is closed.
Otherwise, that rear brace looks pretty civil from here but I don't have the advantage of a close-up at the rear corners to see well. These can get real weak at the very rear where the last bolt holds the hood hinge.

[Daves55Sedan]

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Looking at it again, I do not believe the hood can possibly mate well with the top of the cowl. It will appear to be popped up about 1/4 inch right where that piece was welded on the brace.

[56sedandelivery]

Thanks will try the felt thing. The hood does bow in the center some but think it has been that way since day i bought it, 1980s. I enclosed pics of original car and you can see where it is level in the center but dips down at the ends. Also enclosed pic of the mounting area where someone has welded in a piece where I assume it had cracked. As far as the hood bow I will probably let the body shop work on that as I am to the point I do not want to screw it up. Lol

[56sedandelivery]

Put the felt in but did not seem to make any difference. Did notice that at the pass side hinge where the rear cross brace attaches to the skin was loose. So welded it up and helped a lot but still has more flex then I like. Will just leave it to the body shop to look at it when the look at the bow at the rear to see if it is a normal amount of flex or not.

[frank long island]

you can use panel bond on the braces and hood skin in place of the felt this will add stiffness and hold it together just clean the metal good it likes bear steel they make a few work times you can work the cowl area to fit with the adhesive in place when it hardens you will have the shape you fit i use this product quite a bit from metal to fiberglass to sheet molded compound great for areas where you need to seal two panels such as rocker panels along bottom edge wheel wells good luck