Being that I can only work part time due to an injury, I am pretty much broke. That being said, I still want to do cool stuff to my car. What is cooler than a nice set of louvers? I can't afford to have them stamped by a shop. Have any of you used louvers from other sources, such as industrial equipment, washers/ dryers other junkyard sources?
I have a sheet of louvers from a metal fab shop I was saving for something. I don't see why you couldn't....
Can you cut and weld? I dig up machine covers with louvers from HVAC companies that have old commercial AC units and such.. It's amazing what you can find in a junkyard that has old farm equipment and machines. Just try to find similar gauge material... my 2 cents... Good luck!
Cut AND weld!?!? Man, you ask for a lot... I've seen those "other guys" just sheet metal screw furnace vents onto a car. Doesn't that work too?
Yup, cut and weld is part of the plan, however, that idea of sheet metal screws and furnace vents has a certain "ol skool" charm about it!
my louvered hood flew open on a car I used to have and ruined it. I saved the louvers and put a few in my dash on my 49
What size louvers and how many do you want? What kind of car and what panel are you trying to put louvers in? One of the things that you have to consider is gage thickness of the metal that has the louvers punched in it. Does it match the gage of the panel you want to weld it into. joe
Corvair trunklids (or would they be considered hoods? The ones in the back over the motor) have two long rows of louvers on them. I saved a junk lid from one I parted out to cut those louvers out in case I ever needed some. To cut out a ton of louvers and weld them into a hood would probably be difficult, hate to have to do any bodywork near a louver. But for certain applications I think the cut and paste method would work real well.
The Corvair louvers are a good idea, however, I haven't seen any around here for a long time. Early VW buses had some too but you have to turn them backside-to.
Cut the louvers out leaving a 1" or so border. Rivet the louver panel to the hood side with genuine rivets - no pop rivets. Course, you're gonna need part of the hood panel cut away, but doing it this way strikes me as an ok way to do it and it'll look good if you do a good job with the rivets. You can buy small machine screws with no head slot, phillips or Torx head. They look like rivets when installed.
Tte older beverage coolers (True, Bev-Air) used in ma/pa stores have louvered panels around the bottom rear and are the right size, usually held on with 4-6 screws. I have used them several times.
A year or so ago there was a thread about this very idea. Some examples were listed as well, and they looked rather nice.
I used stainless ****on head machine screws to fasten the muroc tag on my dash........It looks like it is pop rivited on. I think you could fasten the louver panels on like this, and it would look real good.
Lets see Brittney Candy Alabama Oh **** you said louvers not lovers !! On a more serious note we were in a old salvage yard that had some big *** electrical cabinets in it. The doors came off real easy as they were made of average thickness steel and flat so they were easy to work with >>>>.
If you find "that guy"everybody has one, who is old and fixes lawn mowers, he'll probably give the hoods off of them to get rid of them.......FREE....and most out of 18 and 20 ga steel..... I did that with a local guy and got about 25 or 20 of them. Took the plasma cutter to them and cut off what i wanted, loaded the rest up and took it to the recycler and got about 40 bucks back.
Excellent point. I've got some #6 ****onhead allen bolts holding some Dzus ****ons on temporarily until paint and some semi-permanent rivets. They really don't look too shabby. Are some of these industrial cabinet louvers made of aluminum? They would look pretty good brushed or polished and held on with stainless ****onheadallens. The stainless ****onhead allens polish easy. Grab em with aluminum jaw pliers, stick em in the buffer for a second and they're done.
If you have a bead roller and some offset dies you can offset the edge of the louvered panel and make an opening in the panel to match the offset. When you rivet the louvered panel it will almost look like it is punched into the panel. If you rivet in on top the offset will reduce the affect of the panel being riveted. This is a panel that I was playing around with prior to making some that we put on a car. Joe
If you can find one in the junkyard, 1971 full size GM cars (Impalas, Catalinas, LeSabres, etc.) had a neat set of reverse louvers in the middle of the trunk lid that were part of the flow through ventilation system. There are some pictures in this discussion thread: http://forums.aaca.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=504748
somebody is selling some in the cl***ifieds....is it poverty flats??? can't remember, I even PM'd him last night....
i don`t know your how bad your health is or if you have a welder ?? if you do have a welder and are healthy enough, build a human powered louver press. two homemade dies (can be shaped with a grinder and made with s**** metal ) , connected with s**** tubing with a hinge in the middle and a spot on top to hit with bfh. better to make a tool that can be used again. gary
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