Series One Bonnets from JDHT

[Moeregaard]

I'd like to hear from anyone who has purchased and installed a new bonnet obtained through the JDHT store. Since I live in a state where it's long been the tradition to "park by sound" the nose of my current '66 has seen more minor shunts (and bodged repairs) than a New York taxi. Even with the U.S. dollar in the porcelain convenience worldwide, I can still order one directly and save a lot of money over going to one of the usual suspects here.

Obviously some fitting up will be necessary, but I'd like to hear the impressions any of you may have. Just curious...

[Heuer]

Mark

No personal experience of the JDHT bonnet but like all the others available fitting will run to about 40 hours. The length to rear edge is usually longer by design so the edge wire will have to be removed, edge flattened, trimmed and re-rolled to fit. Make sure you employ someone who has done it many times before!

Fitting of the bumpers can also be a pain and they may need grinding to fit correctly so factor in a re-chrome of these parts along with the re-paint.

The procedure was fully covered in the November 2007 copy of the E-Type magazine - worth getting a copy just to see what is involved.

David

[Moeregaard]

Many thanks, David. With my first E-Type I was blessed with a car that was worn out mechanically, but with a pristine body. My current car is a lot more "experienced" in old-car terms, in that I have minor dents and rust all over this thing. The central-California coast is rough on bodywork.

From looking at the bonnet, I've pretty much determined that the repair-vs.-replace debate weighs heavily in favor of replacement. I know that fitting up a new piece requires patience and experience, but had wondered what others' experienced had been.

I agree with your assertion that bumper fitting can be a nightmare. When I restored my '65 FHC I fitted replacements from Mexico. I was fortunate in that they fit well, but I can imagine the nightmares some have gone through with bumpers that didn't fit. My current '66 will have its bumpers rechromed and refitted.

[MarkE]

Mark?remember that you can buy replacement panels for the bonnet, which may be a better way to go. If the main ?top? panel is good, along with the two wings, it?s quite common here to just fit the front lower panel, which seem to get most of the road muck and damp. This is the panel under the front bumpers, that also forms the bottom of the mouth and the ?hinge? locator.

It really depends on how rusty the wing flanges are, that run along the length of the bonnet, and the matching top panel flanges. The wings come off easily, allowing you to de-rust areas, or even let in a bit of metal.

Buying a complete new bonnet, shipping it to the US, and fitting it, with the current exchange rate, wouldn?t leave you with much change out of $10,000?maybe more if you get the bumper fitting challenges as well. You can do a lot of work to the original bonnet for that.

The new bonnets aren?t as ?crisp? as the originals either, even though they are made from the same tooling which is now quite worn. It?s not as bad as the repro rear wings, which are rubbish. When my coupe was having its bodywork done, it was parked alongside an accident damaged E Type that needed a new bonnet. Comparing the original to the new showed less definition and less depth to the curves on the new bonnet?it really does show. It?s less pronounced on the S1 that the S3, which has the flared arches and sharp squared edges to the arches. These are very poor on the new bonnets.

Given the choice, I would spend the same money repairing an original bonnet as I would replacing it with a new one.

Mark

[Moeregaard]

Mark, thanks for the input. I had heard that the tooling used to produce new bonnets was getting tired.

My wings are in good shape, with no rust, but the center panel has received a lot of attention from someone with a slide hammer and a large can of Bondo. Filler is oozing through the holes left by the hammer throughout the nose area. On the plus side, the bonnet fit to the body is very good.

My fear is that the labor needed to put this thing right will add up to the cost of a new bonnet, but if the replacement needs a lot of work to fit up you may be right about salvaging the original item.

In any event, I've been straddling the fence on this issue and all comments and suggestions are appreciated.

[MarkE]

The nose of my coupe was in a poor shape too. A lot of parking dents, with a couple of deep ones that, like yours, had been drilled for the slide hammer and a load of filler added making filler ?worms? on the underside of the panel.

When I took the body to the shop, I had removed all the paint and filler, so he could see what to do straight away. The first thing he wanted to do was to straighten out the nose, so within 5 minutes we had the bonnet off and onto some stands and he started work on it. Fascinating to watch. He got all the big dents out (roughly) within 30 minutes, welded up the slide hammer holes, ground them down so you couldn?t tell they?d been done. He then spent a couple of hours getting out the smaller dents, then an hour of so heating the area, and using a shrinking hammer and / or a very wide pair of dollys, got the nose looking like new. He then sanded the nose until it looked like polished aluminium, sprayed it with a guild coat, and sanded off the guide coat to find any tiny imperfection, which he also addressed. When that was done, the bonnet went back on (gaps were still factory) and he started another area of the car. Total time, about 5 hours. Not a scrap of filler and the nose looked absolutely perfect.

So it doesn?t have to cost a fortune to do properly. To roughly pull it out, fill it, sand it, maybe another small fill would have taken a couple of hours. There were probably another 10 or so area on the car that had to be fixed like that, so it maybe added 20 or 30 hours or so to do it properly. A lot of that was saved when it came to prep and paint, as the panels were dead straight, and didn?t need a skim of filler to make it look good, only a high build primer. And on a dark car, especially black, any imperfection show up?still can?t find any on the coupe.

If you do get the bonnet fixed, it?s probably worth stripping it right down once it?s all straight again, and get the frames re-bonded to the bonnet skin. This is also a job that isn?t done very well on the new panels, and they can come apart within a couple of years. Most of the original bonnets will need doing, and the modern seam sealers are a lot better that those used in 1965! I guess that the replacement panels are done in a hurry, are not too carefully bonded together, and any dirt / wax etc. will limit the life of the adhesion.

Mark

[Moeregaard]

Thanks again, Mark. Panel beating is definitely an art form. After much thought I've pretty much decided to retain my original bonnet. In spite of the problems I mentioned previously, it does fit the car well. It will require disassembly to repair some damage to the inner panels up forward, and there is some de-bonding between the inner and outer panels.