Cub Hood Straightening Method(s)...

[Like-em-all]

All the Cub hood/tanks that I have are "bowed"out along the lower edge of the hood . Using a straight edge, they appear to be bowed out about 3/8" to 1/2". I can block the front and rear ends on the inside and push the bowed sides inward to get a straight edge, but when pressure is relaxed, of course the bow comes right back . Seeing all these nice restored Cubs with hood edges as straight as new leads me to believe that someone (every one but me? ) knows tricks/methods of how to bend the hood enough to stay straight, yet not so much as to form a crease in the middle . Any and all comments are welcome.

Bill

[ToddW]

My loboy hood has a 3/8" dip down across the front as well.

I too have been wanting to know how to get that bow out of the hood

[Bus Driver]

Even if it takes days of looking and thinking before hitting with hammer, good body work requires doing the reverse of the action that caused the undesired bends in the metal. The part that bent last is the part to straighten first. An example is the rear quarter panel on a car. It gets caved in by being hit. The last part that bent is the outer edges of the caved portion. So hammer and dolly are used rather gently around those outer edges first. As the metal flattens or returns to original shape, the dolly is moved in to the next bent area. One is amazed how well this technique works , how easily and quickly. Banging out the deepest portion of the dent first just makes one big mess- but that is what our intuition tells us to do.

[Rob in NH]

could you post a picture, not sure of what you want.

[Like-em-all]

Even if it takes days of looking and thinking before hitting with hammer, good body work requires doing the reverse of the action that caused the undesired bends in the metal. The part that bent last is the part to straighten first. An example is the rear quarter panel on a car. It gets caved in by being hit. The last part that bent is the outer edges of the caved portion. So hammer and dolly are used rather gently around those outer edges first. As the metal flattens or returns to original shape, the dolly is moved in to the next bent area. One is amazed how well this technique works , how easily and quickly. Banging out the deepest portion of the dent first just makes one big mess- but that is what our intuition tells us to do.

Bus Driver, thanks for the info. The hood sides are hard to bump with a dolly due to those three stiffening ridges, but it does work at the extreme ends pretty well.

I have spent most of a day learning how to include photo images on a post reply (thanks to panel beater). I have added them to try and show the problem and a remedy that I came up with. After relaxing the traction, it removed about 90% of the bow on each side. I may try again to pull them in a little more. Now I have to rest from adding these first ever images:











They sure are wimpy little pictures ! It seems they dropped from 200 kbytes to 2 or 3 kbytes somewhere along the way.

Bill

[Bill Hudson]

Bill,

Try this on for size



In the image string, just remove "thumb_" and you will get the same as I have posted. Good luck. I left a few for you to practice on.

Bill

[Like-em-all]

Thanks Bill. My being "all thumbs" has taken on a new meaning .

Bill

[Boss Hog]

After you get it where you want it a little heat in the right place will help I believe, Pannelbeater will chime back in soon and give you the lo down.

[tst]

I have found that the bulge in the side comes from the hood being hit in the front, it may not have been hit hard enough to dent the front but just push it far enough for the side to bulge,i just use the porta power or a bottle jack with a 2x4 in the front and another by the gas tank it stretches the tank back and straightens the sides
Tim

[Rob in NH]

i would try pulling the front first to see if it pull the sides in like tst said. then if the sides have loose metal i would do some heat shrinking to tighten up the metal. heat dime sized spots then hammer and dolly the spots then quench with water.

[Harold R]

That all sounds like it would make a nice work shop project at a cub fest.