Exterior

Front

The hood itself appeared to be in excellent shape, however was not the correct hood for its year. The MkII hood had the side vents, which I think are cool, but had holes for side marker lamps, holes for a higher bumper, and a different panel for indicator lights. It also had holes for the GT6+ badge, rather than the traditional "triumph" wording with shield.

There was a MK1 hood right outside town, but it had rust damage, was dented, and there was bondo all over it. I asked the owner how much he wanted for the hood. He said that considering that the parts discontinued, and a new one from Victoria British costs over $2000, he'd sell me his for $1000. I told him no thanks and that I could get one online for $300 easy. He asked me to give him a counter offer, so I said $400, or $300, and he keeps my 1970 hood. He never responded back.  A year later I would meet a local GT6 restorer at a car show. He was looking to buy the very car in the pic, but he wanted far too much. So there it still sits today, rusting and rotting what little metal is left.

Sure I could find MkII hoods and MkIII hoods, even Spitfire hoods, but truthfully I could not find a MkI hood. But one day I got an email from a stranger who found my "wanted" ad on craigslist. He was searching for parts for his MkII, and found a Denver ad that I might be interested in. It was listed as a Triumph "GT" hood.  $300 obo. Being that he was willing to ship it, I didn't bother offering him anything less. I was able to get it shipped from terminal to terminal for about $140.

The listing said it had some rust. I just assumed being a 43yo car, that was just something any unrestored hood would have. After all, I knew that the local one would require tons of work, but then I started grinding and discovered that the car has a LOT more rust. The Seller may not of known how bad it really was though because it was bondoed over and resprayed. And from the condition of the paint, I would have to say it happened a long long long time ago.

So now I had a good MkII hood and a bad MKI hood. I was thinking how cool it would be to have the MKI lights and the MKII vents, but realizing how rare it must be to find a good MKII hood, I felt bad about chopping it up. I soon found someone local that was willing to trade me one good MKI hood for my MKII hood. He had the opposite problem, a MKII body, MKI hood. He was the same guy who gave me a free MKI engine, so that was AWESOME!! Just wished I had found him before purchasing the Colorado hood.

Apparently every hood I have seen has stress cracks near the latch area. We made sure to weld them back together

The red hood, was a much nicer hood, but it had been in a front end collision. The front had been hammered out, and the passenger fog light area was almost entirely recreated with bondo. A new sheet of metal was welded on to hold the bondo in place. They did a good job in bondo sculpting because I had no idea until after I had grinded it all away.

So we decided to take the good fenders off the red, and the good center from the green and weld it together. The bad fog area on the red passengers was replaced with a green, which only had a small bit of rust damage (smaller than a dime), which was easily repaired with welding.

I told the guy we traded about my great MKII hood... ...looks great, but I havent stripped it down, so for all I know it may have been equal or worse shape than the replacements I got. Since he purchased a lovely example of a MKI, he has been trying to sell both the MKII hood and tub. Hopefully the GT6 restorer I met at the car show will purchase it. I cant imagine wanting the other which was in such a sorry state, when this was basically rust free and real cheap. If I didnt already have my GT6 project, I would have probably taken this one myself.

This green hood came with these decals. Since I was going to be stripping and painting, I carefully scraped them off. They do not sell replacements. I have considered possibly using these as a template to make my own. Since its not practical to make one set, I probably would make several, since I know other people probably would want them.

Just a light skim coat.

Finally finished painting. Sorry for the lack of prep work shots, most of those can be found on other pages.

I have no idea about these three holes. Some of the people Ive asked believe two of them are for hood pins, but I think this is ridiculous, as there is no need for them IMO, due to the way to hood opens. Not strapped down, the hood would still remain closed due to wind force.

All welded shut and protected with paint

After stripping, I found this bronze repair around the same areas. How many holes did this thing have?!?

Firewall apparently had a stress crack in it, which was welded up. Also looks like someone else has welded another hole. There's a matching one on the other side.

One of the cool things about the green hood was that it came with lights and the majority of emblems, though the shield was installed upside down. Considering the costs, I had decided on running around with just a silver one, but later just restored it with new enamel

Car naked and stripped