Holes in sheet metal

I had some nickel to quarter sized rust outs, as well as pin holes on my 8n and NAA.

I sanded both sides of the hood down clean, pas tthe rust, around the hole, and then cut some metal flashing ( tin? ) and jbwelded it to the back of the hood as a backing for the filler. On the larger hole i used more jbweld as filler.. in the pinholes I used bondo. Do yourself a favor.. if you do the jbweld thing.. get the jb qwick weld.. mix it good and it wont run.. sets fast, gets hard, and sands smoother than bondo. ( harder to sand than bondo. )

I had to do some repairs to the ribbed area on the hood in front.. bondo, lots of patients, and a few types of sand paper and a small form i made worked great. ( I made a form out of epoxy putty on a good section of the ribbing, then used this form with light sand paper to sand the bondo'd ribbing down to almost exact conture. Not 100% perfect.. but looks good at close glance.)

Soundguy

If you have a friend with a welder it would only take a few minutes to tack a small piece of metal behind each hole.

• My Site

If you're doing a show-quality restoration on the hood, don't use bondo. Take the thing to the welding shop or a body shop and have patches welded in and ground down or leaded if you can find an old-time lead man.

Basically, the cut goes through the decorative molding along the bottom edge. That's hard to reproduce. I was thinking of layering some fiberglass for a base profile and then filling and shaping with Bondo since it can be sanded and retouched as needed. The cut is right where the dogleg meets the hood on the backside (towards the fuel tank). Any suggestions?

My 8N had a dent on the curve of the hood 1/2-way from the battery door to the nose. When I sandblasted it, the dent was at least 1" deep and filled with bad bondo. I hammered it out with dollies and body hammers and heat, then it took only a small amount of bondo to level and sand out smooth. You can't even see a ripple under the primer.