Matters of the Hood

4 July, 2014 -- Big forward movement!  I decided to visit the shop while running a bunch of errands in Huntsville.  When I got there, Dan was in the shop.  Deron and Daniel (on Summer break) had not yet arrived.  As I approached the car, I noticed that the rumble seat lid and doors were off and the hood, radiator, and all four fenders were now among the missing.  Dan asked, "Do you notice anything different?  I walked around the car but failed to notice the obvious -- The car is now detached from the frame:

Dan is preparing to mount it on its dolly once again to do the final prime coat in preparation for the "real" paint.  He also said that the work on the front fenders was completed and that they are at the media blaster to be cleaned and pickled in preparation for their primer coats.  He had been working on the top panels of the hood.  The side panels are ready for final prime coat.

The hood of the Model PB Plymouth is an interesting subchapter in the history of automotive styling.  In 1932, most automobiles had hoods that extended to the firewall.  There was a distinct line between the hood and the front of the cowl area.  The 1932 Ford is a good example of this design.  

The Chrysler design team decided to extend the hood all the way to the windshield on the entire Chrysler product line for the "1932" models, including the Model PB Plymouth (The model changes didn't always coincide with calendar years.).  This design introduces a challenge with regard to ventilation.  It required that the hood and the cowl each have vent openings with vent covers that could be operated from within the car.  It was a clever design with one serious flaw.  There was no way to drain the channel in the hood in which the rubber seal cushion resided.  These soft rubber gaskets always absorbed water, stayed wet, and eventually caused the steel channel in which they were cemented to pit and ultimately rust through.  Such was the case with the hood for this roadster.  It was better than most, but had some pinholes rusted through.  The challenge to the restorer is that if we try to weld the pinholes, we stand a good chance of introducing warpage and distortion into the smooth curves of the hood.  Dan solved this problem nicely by scouring the channels to rid them of any corrosion, sealing the underside of the hood with tape, and spreading a thin layer of two-part epoxy in the channel.  This seals the channel, doesn't require any welding, and will be totally invisible since it will be covered by the rubber seal.  And the repair will never rust!

The underside of the hood vent opening has all the complexity of the hinges and attaching point for the vent cover adjustment mechanism.  This entire assemblage extends through the vent opening in the cowl, which is larger than the hood vent.  The whole thing worked and allowed the '32 Chrysler products to look longer and more stylistically uncluttered.  All that and the advantage of bugs and rain having direct ingress when the vents are opened!  You can see the result in this picture of my other 1932 Plymouth taken today with the driver's vent opened:

The effect of the continuous hood is even more dramatic on the 1932 Chrysler Custom Imperial Phaeton shown in this factory photo: