ClassicCar

This is a picture of my 49 Hood - which was completely stock no repaints -
sorry for the dirt and customizations but this shows some points of
interest if you were trying to restore something...

Ignoring the surface rust - there was one plainly visible area where the
factory paint was thin...I remember cleaning the dirt off and seeing that
the paint on the underside was not covering fully in more than that
area...this makes me think that the painting may have been

1. focused more on the hood edges and front section
2. was mostly overspray (maybe just a little heavier than overspray)

I posted this question a long time ago - I've always wondered whether
the markings were factory?

nick s wrote:

Russ, I believe 54 was the only year with factory insulation. I have seen at least one parts car where the hood was undercoated (i would assume by the dealer). my 50 which is pretty well unmolested (except by the squirrel that stored his nuts in the carb and the mice that lived in the seats and headliner), shows no signs of insulation ever being present.

My 52 Commodore 8 had traces of the Jute type insulation glued to the underside in a square section in the middle of the hood.

Would the upper end models have had the jute insulation where the lower models did not?

Dan: Looks like your carb hic-cupped a couple of time and scorched the hood.:eek: My hood was also original underneath and I did not have any of the type of markings yours has. Replacement hood from a junk yard, maybe?

It's insulating the squeeks!
What do you guys use for replacement pieces in this area?

If I remember the gunk above the carb was mostly oil and dirt - never caught fire that I could see.

My '50 has undercoating under the hood, but than its got undercoating all over the friggen car!

My '50 Commodore is fairly original in all respects. It has undercoating over the original paint. Perhaps some that don't are cars which had their hoods replaced at some point.

James P. wrote:

My '50 Commodore is fairly original in all respects. It has undercoating over the original paint. Perhaps some that don't are cars which had their hoods replaced at some point.

My pacemaker has no insulation or undercoating, and the hood is 100% original. The car has been in my family since new, and the hood has never even been removed. My dad has a 50 C6 that he bought in 1961, also original paint under the original hood with no insulation or undercoating. I have seen cars with undercoating, but don't know when it was installed. I am thinking that it was either done by the dealers or for specific regions. Both the cars mentioned above were originally sold in upstate NY.

faustmb wrote:

My pacemaker has no insulation or undercoating, and the hood is 100% original. The car has been in my family since new, and the hood has never even been removed. My dad has a 50 C6 that he bought in 1961, also original paint under the original hood with no insulation or undercoating. I have seen cars with undercoating, but don't know when it was installed. I am thinking that it was either done by the dealers or for specific regions. Both the cars mentioned above were originally sold in upstate NY.

I think that Hudson started putting the insulation under the hood in about 52.I have seen my share of original cars,and I can only remember 52 and up.The "undercoating"we are discussing here was usually used for sound deadener.This stuff was sprayed on in all kinds of places[along the rockers,inside the floor pans,all around in most of the trunks have it-real heavy-,all in and around the fenders wells-NOTE-if you remove this when restoring the front fenders,replace it with something,if you don't,rocks will ding the finish from the inside out..If you look,it usually is located everywere there is possible road noise and/or engine noise.I have found the body seams all had this real thick layer/layers of the seam sealer that usually turned hard as a rock,would shrink up,put away from whatever it was sprayed on and then become a trap for water and other road elements.I think when they put the Step-Down cars together,they anticipated some creaks and groans,so they put LOTS of the deadener/sealer on as many seams as they could.I think that as time went on for the Step-Down cars,the more they used this stuff.They knew it did work for the noise!!!The doors all had the black paper material in them,and when you remove the door panels,most of the time it is all bunched up at the bottom of the door/doors.Most of the trunks all have the paper in the lid.If you look at how this stuff was installed,you can see that it was done before the outer skin was put on,same on the doors.The rockers on Step-downs had these foam rubber quarter round pieces in front of the rocker and then one just before the rear fender,and the rocker had like a chalking material at the bottom of where it bolts to the frame.I also think this was because of a noise concern.I really haven't noticed that much of this sound proofing stuff on the earlier cars.

Dan, Actually that really isn't insulation. That was put there to prevent squeaking from the cross hood brace and the hood itself.. Same stuff used on the gas tank and in the doors-same idea.



I believe that another reason for these pads were to raise/lower the rear angle of the hood to get it to line up with the height of the cowl. removing these pieces won't necessarily cause a "squeak" but more of a rattle. When installing the hood, shims are put underneath of the cross brace to "lift" the sheet metal up in the back and making everything look good. If that wasn't the purpose, then I just invented something! Another thing, I see numbers written in chalk under your hood Rambo. Those are factory. There was a NOS '49 hood put on my father's '49. It had numbers written in chalk on it. The other markings could have been the inspectors mark off of the assembly line, I am not sure about that.

Not that I doubt the info you say is present in the 48-54 parts book, but I would think that air movement under the hood would cause a glued pad to get tattered in short order. Is there anyway to verify to what degree, if any, hood insulation would be correct on cars from 52 on?

53jetman wrote:

My '53 Superjet had the fiberglass pad under the hood, and I can't find any info in my files where this was offered as an option, so it must have been part of the "Super" Jet package.

Jerry,
I never noticed before your post that my Super Jet is missing the hood insulator....another item to put on the "want" list.

BTW, my '50 C6 doesnt have any undercoating under the hood.

Well, not be be a stinker, but how do we known this is original? Anyway, the nice thing about the HET club is the fact that they don't judge cars. Even if they did, Hudson was in a whirlwind near the end and pretty much did whatever it took to make a buck. So, at least to a point, anything goes.



Now, let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of hood insulation. Obviously, it helps to muffle engine sounds and keeps the hood paint from getting excessively baked. But I'm sure there are many other thoughts out there.

Jimalberta wrote:

my 54 wasp doesn't have insulation on it , probably cause its a lower end car. It does get a lot of insects under there though.

Big surprise that you've got insects under the hood of your WASP!

Has anyone with experience with under the hood insulation found that it had an effect on vapor locking? I've wanted to do something to reduce engine noise (insulated firewall and floor pans) but have held off hood for that reason. Walt-LA

I stopped the vaporlock problem by cutting the line from the fuel pump and turning the hard line to the right, then running a rubber hose over to the fenderwell to an inline filter, (made a mounting bracket out of two L brackets that I had laying around) then ran a hose to the carb. I have had no problems since then. I do have an electric pump but it is in the trunk in a tupperware box with some other parts.
Bob