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Howdy,
The car had been wrecked and repaired when I bought it. The headlight support was torn loose from the fenders and when they fixed to car they didnt reattach it so the center was about 3/4 inch lower than the hood. When I repainted the car I cut the surround in the outer corners of the headlight openings to the hood opening and lifted the center up and reattached the ends of the headlight support to the fenders, ground out all the old body work and reworked it. That was when I was about 22 or so years old and i didnt think to loosen the bumper support . Now as I am beginning to redo the car again, when I took off the bumper horseshoe everything dropped down about 3/8 inch more. There is a lot of damage on the nose, I pretty much made the headlight opening back then and to be honest, didnt do the best job, Lot of mud, cracks and bad bodywork. I was wondering how much trouble it is the replace the surround. The fenders and inner fenders are bonded good and lined up, that should make it easier to get the surround straight. Also was wondering would it be easier to use a half surround and work the patch or use full surround and bond back to the firewall.
Tom Gusset?
Almost anything that is glass on the car can be repaired-replaced if you have the time, expertise, patience or the money for someone else to do it. If you are going to redo the car including the paint, strip the paint and reassess the areas that need attention, which will probably be larger than the cracks in the paint that are evident.
Removing and installing a top hood surround is really not that bad but can take some time getting it to fit...which is not uncommon.
This is obviously a 1968 or 1969. AS for it not having he gussets at the end of the headlight support beam...you know you may want to install them due to that is what GM did in the later years as it seems you are already aware of.
AS for getting a top hood surround I would get one from Corvette Image and not think twice about it. Just verify if they bond on the headlight support beam or not...and if they CORRECTLY rivet on the front reinforcement that is riveted to the front inside edge of the top hood surround also. IF they do not mess with the steel reinforcement at the front of the top hood surround you can clean yours up adn actually get the correct solid aluminium rivets and rivet it back on. Not that hard to do.
If you go this route then let us know so when you get ready to do it there are some things you need to be aware of that should be done prior to you bonding it on.
Hood Surround
