Preparations for painting - hood louvers

[procharlie]

I am preparing my TTA for repaint and have been removing all trim, etc. I can't figure out how to remove the side air louvers on the hood, the ones toward the rear of the hood. There is almost no access from the bottom of the hood and I am afraid of breaking something if I try to force them off.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jan Larsson]

They are held in by clips on the one side ... you can get to them from the openings underneath the hood if I remember correct on the hinge side.

Long flat thin screwdriver and look to the side in there and you will get to them.

One thing to make sure when you get the hood painted is that the clear etc will build up where the hood vents sit so make sure they are being sanded down and trial fitted to have enough clearnece for paint, clear etc to build up and still fit in there or they will ride on the edges ...

 

[procharlie]

Thanks for the help. I did see some clips on the outer side from below, and tried to release them, but had no success, and was afraid there were others on the inboard side that also had to be released, so I stopped there. I will try again using a long screwdriver as you suggested.
BTW, I am planning to paint using integrated base/clear urethane since this is a solid color and it’s much less work than the 2-part basecoat/clearcoat. I had heard the integrated is just about as nice as the 2-part for solid colors, not metallics, and I had an ’84 Grand National I painted years ago with the integrated black and it turned out pretty good – see attached pic. Do you have any opinion as to whether using the white integrated base/clear on my TTA is a bad idea?

 

[procharlie]

I got them off, thanks a lot for your help!
But when I removed them I found some foam rubber pieces behind the louvers, between the hood and its inner panel, that appeared to be there either to keep the louvers from rattling/vibrating, or to prevent airflow out through them (which makes no sense to me). The foam pieces appeared to be hand cut, not very neat, so I assume someone had removed the louvers before and inserted them. I removed them and don't plan to put them back in when I re-assemble the car after painting. Do you know if those foam pieces are originally part of the car?

 

[Jan Larsson]

I got them off, thanks a lot for your help!
But when I removed them I found some foam rubber pieces behind the louvers, between the hood and its inner panel, that appeared to be there either to keep the louvers from rattling/vibrating, or to prevent airflow out through them (which makes no sense to me). The foam pieces appeared to be hand cut, not very neat, so I assume someone had removed the louvers before and inserted them. I removed them and don't plan to put them back in when I re-assemble the car after painting. Do you know if those foam pieces are originally part of the car?

Yep those are supposed to be there ... inside of the upper lowers and above the lower front lowers ...

GM shows them in their part book but the partnumber don't come up anywhere anymore, I tried when I had mine painted so what I ended up doing was to get some quality industry foam and cut new pieces myself and just pushed in there ... I suspect most people just leave them out but defenitly remove the old ones and clean out those areas beafore you get the hood painted.

 

[Jan Larsson]

Thanks for the help. I did see some clips on the outer side from below, and tried to release them, but had no success, and was afraid there were others on the inboard side that also had to be released, so I stopped there. I will try again using a long screwdriver as you suggested.
BTW, I am planning to paint using integrated base/clear urethane since this is a solid color and it’s much less work than the 2-part basecoat/clearcoat. I had heard the integrated is just about as nice as the 2-part for solid colors, not metallics, and I had an ’84 Grand National I painted years ago with the integrated black and it turned out pretty good – see attached pic. Do you have any opinion as to whether using the white integrated base/clear on my TTA is a bad idea?

For the paint I have no experience / expertise what would be the best ... I had mine done in the factory base/clear but I know with todays strict environemntal rules (at least here in the UK) they have changed systems and pretty much going away from the 2 part I used but again as I said not an expert on this so hopefully someone else can chime in and help with some advice.