MTFCA Forum

Mine is usable, but I'm curious. Is anybody making them?

Never seen these repoped. They usually command over $100 in good shape, this wide cowl one piece stamping would need some crafty tooling to reproduce.

Rootleib makes their #180 1911-14 style Steel Hood Former for $180.

Steve, first, not that I know of; second, yours shows the typical problem with these, and the one (at least) design flaw of these formers; the hood hinge rod hole. Since it's just a thin piece of metal, the hole is usually worn badly. I plan on adding a short piece of tubing to the hole to give the rod proper support, and prevent future wear. Fortunately, there is room there to put a short piece of tubing on. I haven't yet decided how I will do this--silver solder, braze, or have someone who is more talented than I weld it on. The finished product should look like nothing was done from the visible side. I know, I've modified an original part, but I think it was a factory design flaw! (Blasphemy, Ford made a mistake!-- four Hail Henry's for that!)
One of the tricks with these is to get a wood firewall the correct thickness (or thinness) to fit them, as I recall, it's an oddball size. Some folks have resorted to routering the back edge of the firewall to fit , as the body pretty much hides that area.

I was thinking Howells in Beaumont Tx. made these but I was wrong and they don’t. Tooling and setting up takes time and money to make sheet metal pieces like this and if someone was to make them they would have to be cheap enough to sell yet be enough for the maker to sell them. I’ve seen a very few of these at the swap meets but they weren’t in very good shape.
But that was me maybe others have seen them.
You can see hoods, fenders, and body panels fairly often but not these.

David

make the tube longer than you want.
get a small piece of aluminum and drill just barely over the diameter of the tube for a close slip fit

place former face down, with tube 1/2 in the aluminum and 1/2 sticking out toward you. Fixture the "legs" of the former to the thickness of the aluminum block. This will keep the tube perpendicular to the former.

tacktacktacktack the "inside" OD of the tube to the backside of the former. One, maybe two tacks and let cool...then one/two more...repeat. The aluminum will take the extra heat and keep you from burning through the sheet metal.

Cut/grind the tube off of the "outside" of the former and leave the "inside" tube there. The aluminum will fixture the tube perpendicular to the former and keep the former from burning through as mentioned above. Easy Peasy.

Now, myself, I'd patch the hole solid with fresh steel, drill a pilot hole in the correct place, make a punch/die and use my press to put a flanged hole into the sheet metal. This would provide for a more "period" manufactured piece with the equivalent of a tube welded in place. FWIW.

What I WOULD NOT do is get anywhere near something I valued, with braze. That ruins the entire area for proper welded repair in the future. Hitting a brazed area with weld results in very spectacular fireworks and whatever repair you do manage to do, will be a rotten amalgam of brass/steel which is very brittle.

I just welded a thick washer on the back side. Done deal

Steve I have a good one with with a new fire wall if you need it.

I brazed in place a 1/4" thick steel "plug" behind the hole and brazed the front flush with the panel. This makes for 5/16" hole to accept the hood rod.

An added advantage to this method is the hole can be drilled where the hood fit directs it should be. If the hood is placed on the car, the rod may well be off centre. On my 15 tourer this meant the hole was !/4" to one side and a little higher than original. T people notice the good hood fit. No-one ever noticed the slightly off centre hinge rod hole.

Allan from down under.

I plan on adding a short piece of tubing to the hole to give the rod proper support, and prevent future wear.

That's what I did. I didn't know about the potential for brittleness Scott mentioned, so I brazed it in.


There were three of these at the Model T Haven auction, all needing serious fixing. They sold for $70 each.

Scott, I agree, RE brazing or even Silver Soldering. Took me a bit to figure out what you were describing--I think you forgot to mention about putting the aluminum rod into a flat piece of aluminum, then slide the tube over the aluminum and then the former, face down onto the aluminum so it sits "square" with the tube. I hadn't thought about using the aluminum as a heat sink. Hmm think when I do this, I will practice on some scrap metal! Just in case Mr. Murphy shows up. I actually have a few of these, kept finding better ones at swap meets, have one now that has almost no wear around the hole, but one leg is cut a bit short, not quite an inch.

Allen, interesting thought about hood alignment.
Steve, I don't have one handy to look at right now, but I think the top of the hole is pressed out a bit from the curved surface so the hole is perpendicular to the hood rod.

Many years ago we were building the speedster for Carolyn and her then boy friend. She wanted “eye brows” on the front fenders and the 15 hood former. (I’m just Dad, so I do as I’m told, so don’t ask why). We went up to the Long Beach swap meet and I sent them out looking for what they needed. About 15 minutes later she returns with two 15 hood formers bought for few dollars each. Remember she was/is an attractive, very personable young women in a mainly male environment. Many years later I sold the less desirable one for a nominal sum at Chickasha. Some time later a local club member asked if she had fenders. She didn’t, so he told her to drop by and he would check his “stash”. An hour later he fished two fender from his basement, complete with “eye brows”.
Moral of the story is the stuff is still out there, you just got to be persistent (and have a good story).

David, I applied the same logic to my 1912 van, except that in that case the whole former could be juggled around on the flat firewall. That allowed me to juggle the height and the sideways setting. The hood ended up fitting beautifully, with the built up rod hole 1/4" higher and 3/8" offset from centre. It is not noticeable at all.

Allan from down under.