Hello all, I need some more advice. Yesterday I just finished a nearly 3-week brake project, replaced all hoses and the master cylinder plus a frozen caliper. My whole rig was finally fixed, running beautifully with great brakes, when on the ride home from my wife's parent's house the hood blew open at 75mph and slammed into the roof above the windshield. We're very lucky and thankful that we were able to pull over and nobody was hurt. Apparently wasn't latched all the way. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/angry.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/barf.gif" alt="" /> Anyway, the hood opens and closes but the hood itself is bent into a ramp about 3 inches across all the back end, which is easy to fix but worse is the small body panel that runs over the firewall that the washers squirt throught is bent into a nice V shape, and there is a small gap between the bottom of the windshield and the panel edge. I wish I could take some photos now but I currently don't have a digital camera. I'm pretty sure I can pound the hood back into shape, but for the body panel I'm clueless aside from trying to maybe lever it back up. From what I can see this little panel is part of the main cab and doesn't come off on its own. Anyone have any suggestions?

Well, it involves stripping and repainting,

but you could use a stud gun ("spritznagel" (sp?),'welds nails')
to weld studs into the crease, pull the studs, then remove the studs. It's pretty quick, and does a pretty decent job, but you'd still need a skimcoat of filler- the nails stretch the metal slightly when you attach 'em, and shrink it when you pull.

fwiw,
Toby

Some people think body damage is cool.

This is not one of those situations.

Basically, you are stuck. You will have to lever it back as best you can or use the welded stud method mentioned above. Then grind and body fill prior to paint.

Glad you are OK, sorry to hear about the mis-hap.

Thanks for the replies. Does anyone know if the under-windshield panel is accessible from under the dash? That would make it a lot easier to lever out if I could get some force on it from below.

The panel under the windshield can be accessed by pulling off the fenders. You will see a drain hole that is about 1ö high by 2ö wide. You should be able to get a bar in there to pull against.

That panel can be cut out with the windshield removed and the fenders off. It will require cutting a lot of spot welds and a hand held spot welder to put a replacement back with. The best way to remive the spot welds is grind the top part down flush.

A donor part can be gotten from a salvage yard vehicle by cutting below the weld line and grinding the spot welds apart. The job is involved but not impossible. Its similar to hanging a new ? panel but you donÆt have a seams to blend.

My first restoration I ever did I hung two new ? panels, a tail light and a trunk floor. It came out all right. My guess is it would take about two days to change that panel out.

The tricky part is priming the seams when you are done. The factory dipped the entire body and you should have them bare when you spot weld them back.

Good luck,

Kevin

Nope.

I'm fighting it right now on a separate issue with windshield wipers.

Don't forget the seam sealer before a good coat or two of primer.