Michael Hampson
Supporter
I was about to say the same thing, except "doodad".
No, thingamabob would be the technical term.
Hi Gabriel;
This was a brilliant idea from H Craft Customs that I followed.
I first used a 1/8" blade on my angle grinder to make slots for the tabs in the aluminum pieces exactly on the cut line. See the attached pic. Then the pieces slid into place and I taped them to each other with aluminum tape. I waxed the pieces thoroughly and glassed up both sides of the aluminum pieces. Probably put 10 layers of alternating matt and cloth on each side. The result is that the two flanges of fiberglass are exactly 1/8 apart all the way around.
Then I broke the aluminum pieces loose from the glass using a soft mallet and a thin putty knife, and pulled them out, leaving the gap.
Finally, I got a thin kerf grinding disc on the angle grinder and cut the rest of the hood out. Then sanded all of the edges with a flap disc.
Does that make sense? So the tabs on the aluminum pieces slot into the hood and perfectly align the location of the two glass flanges and the resultant gap between the two.
Doing it this way ensures that the gaps are perfect. Cutting the hood out and then adding flanges after the fact would be way more difficult to do and retain alignment.View attachment 100804
lots of work happening in a small space
Yes, the stock Aluminator pan is terribly tall, Ron, Rufus and myself used a moroso pan and dropped the engine around 3 1/2"Thanks!
Now that the engine (almost fit), I removed my nicely painted mount, cut 1/2" off of it, and am welding it back up again. Looks like that 1/2" was enough so that the CJ intake was going to hit the rear glass. It will fit now, and the bottom of the oil pan is as low as it can go.
Measure twice, cut-weld-paint once...I'll learn eventually.