Think they may still do that... Notary work for sure... I think there was Barry and maybe his brother or another relative...

http://asctitleandtags.com/

[quote=fastmark]They come from the factory that way. The factory bulletin says to remove the hood springs and use a prop rod. The west Texas sun flattened mine out in two days [/quote

After two pages of advice, mine is still the same. Your oem hood is the most valuable for the car. Take the springs off and let it sit. It will flatten out. The sun will help. Be careful adding weight. It can go to far. I’d post a picture but this site does not like my iPhone.

Yes maby i need to do that..

Does anyone have a copy they can post or know where this document can be seen?
Maybe Barry???

This method worked on the bow in my AAR hood. Only other thing that I did was Took the car for a ride first to get the hood hot from the engine heat on a hot 90 degree day and used a 2x6 under the head on top of the towel. Put it in the garage with the head on it for a week and the bow was almost completely gone. I lived with that bow for 26 years before I tried this. Should have done it earler. Its been almost a year and the bow has not come back yet.

Give it a try what is the worst that can happen, you might have to rework the hood anyway?
And It does'nt cost you anything to try.

Unless that OE hood is repaired to add stiffness to it it WILL eventually flex and crack the gel coat, and worse, no matter whether you remove the springs or not.Even with the springs removed the hood will flex in the opposite direction upon lifting it. The factory steel insert that the bolts thread into to mount the hood is all the stiffness there is up to that point. Where the steel stops, is where it flexes and eventually cracks. The original fiberglass channel is not strong enough to support it. The best way I know how to make an "invisible" "repair" is to insert some sort of stiffening material (hollow pipe, etc.) into the channel from the very back of it, by carefully sawing away at the end 'cap' of the channel at the very back of the hood where it's least visible. Insert the stiffening device , then set the hood upside down and lock it into a position where the bend is gone. Then pour mixed epoxy resin into the channel to set the stiffening device in place. Make sure to thread bolts into the OE hood mounting holes before pouring the resin. You only get one shot at it, so you have to get it right the 1st time. Not for the faint of heart. Some judicious gel coat work at the place the channel is opened up to reattach the removed piece, and some dark primer and you're done.

71redcuda: are you sure your car has the correct AAR hood springs? They are smaller in diameter than steel hood springs, and while they still promoted the bulge, when someone put standard springs on a glass hood car the hood would really warp!

Make sure your springs are as weak as possible once you "fix" the hood.

This all good info, but again does anyone recommend a replacement hood. I also have a hood that someone left,the pins and folded,the hood back. The inner frame structure in front and behind the hinge mounts is cracked completely around. I’m surprised the hood hasn’t come completely apart. The inner structure needs to be rebuilt. So I am looking for a hood also.

Common issue reported on original hoods. Those hoods are supposed to have special hood springs. I’m not sure if you can find a repro hood that would work any better? Even if you do, you want to keep the original hood.

Nicklas, I purchased one 5 months ago from Year One and I'm very happy with it. It was molded from a nice original hood and even the holes for the clips and screws underneath were faintly there just needing to be opened up. Eddie

My friend has a restored FM3 AAR. He bought a new year one piece and it is extremely nice. One thing he does is to not store it with the hood pinned down. He always pulls the pins so no pressure is in the hinge area during long term storage stints.

I replaced my hood back in the late 80s with one from year one. It was exact to my orig except for the wedge bumps that touch the plastic wedges on the inside lip of thefender. The year one hood just didn’t have em. So I made em with fiberglass and they are still there today. Wish I knew about straightening the original hood... I woulda done that

The year one hoods used to be made by ASC&P which they no longer make them... I looked into buying one last year and ended up molding a race glass hood to a steel frame. I know mine won't bow.

interesting. what did you use for springs ? did you do anything to mimic a "fiberglass appearance" to the hood framework ?

I just left it rough and painted flat black. It's just a clone, so wasn't too concerned about looking original. I had cuda hood the top was shot and got the fiberglass race glass hood on ebay for basically nothing using ebay bucks. I did buy some good 3m adhesive made for bonding materials like this.

AAR out of Florida was making these and nice pieces. I have the repo T/A hood. Nice piece but after 10 years even it has started to bow. I tried all those fixes on my original hood. None of them worked.

I've had my Fiberglass Trends repro T/A hood on my Challenger since about 1979 (39 yrs) with the springs always on...been lucky, still hasn't bowed...