1968 Charger Hood

[john108]

I found the following post listing Hood Manufacturers:
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,40866.0.html

These hoods seem to weight 13 to about 25 pounds.
Do any members have experience with these manufacturers and their work.
Are they solid and rigid or do the vibrate all over the place.
I can barely lift my stock hood.
A local body shop wants $600 to repair the front corner (about 4-5 inches of the corner) of my existing hood because it requires cutting the double wall, straightening, re-welding, grinding the repair and prime the repair.
This seems like a lot for someone who knows what he is doing.

The new hoods are $225 to $400??
I am very interested in your experiences.  Thank you.

[areibel]

Did you shop around any?   Sometimes a shop that's busy will quote a job high if they don't need the work, around here most of the collision shops don't want to mess around with any type of resto work so they price accordingly.
Those hoods are all fiberglass, that's why they're so much lighter.   Some guys like them, but I've had limited experience with them and it's been mostly bad- poor finish, cracking in the gel cost, etc.. It has been 20 years since I've bought any so they may be better now.
Can you do any of it yourself?  Drilling out the spot welds that hold the skin to the frame is pretty straight forward,
you might even be able to straighten the frame yourself and have a shop do the metal work on the skin and put it back together.  The skin is one big piece of floppy metal though, if you separate it you do have to be a litle careful!
If you're looking for steel a new AMD hood is around $700 plus ship from them, but I think you could do better from some of the dealers on here.  Most of the used hoods I've looked at are $400-$500 (here in the rust belt), and they all seem to have some issue. 

[john108]

Thank you for the reply.  I was worried about the fiberglass hoods.  A quick search on YearOne has a steel hood for $720
https://www.yearone.com/Product/1966-74-a-b-e-body/hch68
I attached a couple of jpg's of the corner of my hood, for reference.

[1970Moparmann]

John,

If I were you....... I would keep an eye on getting another hood.  I needed one for my 68 and purchased a nice clean one for $125.   Yours is pretty beat up and if your going with a dark color, you will want a "good" hood.   

[NHCharger]

This board member has better pricing. Did Year One's price include shipping? If not bend over.

http://www.521restorations.com/index.pl?page=allmodels&sub1=Hood

I can a good body shop charging $600.00 for that repair.