I am looking at different ways to lay out some louvers on a 40 Ford Hood. I was seeing if theres any pictures of 39 or 40 Ford hoods done to look at the different layouts...
If you plan to drive it often, you need to make sure you make some kind of pan underneath it otherwise rain will come through the louvers and drown out the engine. Same deal with a louvered deck lid. Only problem is that you need to have some way to drain the water out otherwise it will rust clean through it. I would slope everything to the back of the hoodand run a plastic drain tube up underneath the car some where. Will look for you some pics.
You don't need a pan under your louvers. Just make sure water can't get through your aircleaner top and thus into the intake. A good filter element such as a K&N will repel water well at rest. Make sure your plug wire boots are good at the distributor and you shouldn't have any problems. Water won't come in while you're driving to any large degree anyway. Charlie
The guy who did my '40's hood (sorry no pix ) had patterns that we laid on the hood to check out different sizes and designs.That made it real easy to decide how many I wanted and where. I never ran a pan underneath and never had a problem with water coming in. I did cut a plastic tarp to fit over the motor when the car was going to be outdoors in the rain sitting still , but driving it in the rain was never a problem.
I usually use some white poster paper cut to 1, 2 or 3" widths and various lengths (multiples of 1-1/4" is the spacing my machine provides) to simulate the pattern. That way you get a good feel for how far into edge curvature and what inside stiffeners may need to be removed to accomodate the punching process. I generally like parallel rows on hood tops but sometimes on a narrow hood a row in the center and a row on each side that runs parallel to the edge is sorta different. Wouldn't apply for a '40 hood in my view. Charlie
The Jalopy Journal
