Louvers

MP&C

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Had an early Chevy hood side show up at the shop tonight, the owner wanted a couple different versions of louver samples made up that he could hold against the hood on the car to better visualize. One style he was looking at lends from an early Alfa Romeo that extends the louvers onto the cowl, as shown in the green tape..


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We took a paper pattern of the details so the hood side could go back with him to use as a pattern for the opposite side that still needs to be made.


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Spot welded on some "end stops" for the louver die.....


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.....and a squared plate for the back gauge.


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Louvers in the Lennox.....


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One sample down, one to go..
 
Pretty cool there Robert. I've considered getting a minimal setup to be able to punch louvers before. Lining the things up is something that concerned me, but tac welding stops makes perfect sense. Love the transitional widening look , or whatever you may call it.
80's Iroc Z-28's had a decorative version of these.

I'm in the process of designing vents for a fiberglass custom hood I have. Punched steel lover inserts could be a possibility for me , whether now or replacing some mesh inserts later.
Thanks for the inspiration.
 
Thanks for the comments guys. The tooling I have is only one size, 5/8 louver with 3/8 gap opening. Length in infinitely adjustable as this is designed for a reciprocating machine and the ends are "coined" wherever you decide to stop the louvers by rotating the handle on the last pass. Where a dedicated sized punch would be quicker, it doesn't have the benefit of the tapered length louvers as shown above..


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Thanks!


Well FedEx showed up today with a CL delivery, got a matched pair of 48" linear rails. The two bearing blocks will have a material clamp bolted to each block, and used on one rail. We'll get a chance to try it out on the second louver sample. Where we had been manually holding the workpiece against the back stop, this should work better with a simple glide back and forth once clamped in place..


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While I was getting that squared away, Kyle removed the spot welded guides from the louver panel. The good part about samples is we can see what works well and what doesn't. Here we can see that we won't use spot welds next time as it's too much clean up. I think we'll give some stainless rivets a shot on version 2...

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Thanks Bob!


The more I looked at our panel with the spot weld carnage, the more I disliked the result, so with new linear guides installed, we made all new today using stainless pop rivets to hold the guides in place. This will leave a few 1/8" holes to fill, but should be much less issue than cleaning up after the spot welds...


We needed just a bit more throat for this set of "lengthened" hood sides, so one bolt was removed from the material clamp and then rotated the clamp inward 90". This lets the panel pass through rather than bottom out in the clamp.


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Guides riveted in place....


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Here's the new version 1, much cleaner, less distortion, and we can re-use the guides...


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The cowl piece was done without guides....


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And version 2 with the cowl piece.....


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Dave (the car owner) stopped by this afternoon and picked up the samples, and indicated he was being over-ruled by most parties on louvers in the cowl, so likely that version won't be used...
 
Those louvers look great, I've been wanting a louver die like that but they are a little salty for something I haven't had demand for yet. I would have put the die in sideways on my machine as it doesn't have as deep of a throat.
 
Do you use a certain alloy of steel for that?

I am just trying to redo the bottom of the 36 coupe door, My idea was to bend the 90, let the inside go up the backside of the door, then just allow it to curve to the right shape around the bottom, then take off the new part, cut away the bottom of the door and replace the entire thing. But the .030 I am using is too stiff to follow that little curve. I thought of getting annealed, since I tried to heat this 32" part to cherry red and let it cool, but it just buckled it in the middle, but I would have to get it hardened again.. Maybe I need to go with double .015 so it will curve. Its just too much for my 48" 3in 1 machine.
 
first picture is the side view, second, shows how eaten away the bottom is all across, third picture is the sides of the door I did with a cutoff wheel out of 1/8th inch, which shows how that bottom rolls around from a 90 to almost straight. I tried the heat and bend and it kinked in the middle, tried the process where you move it a little each time on the brake part of the 3:1, but the bends end up about 1/2 inch apart, not the 1/8th that might make it work. If you say english wheel I will have to unpack mine, just looks like its something that should want to go that way. Only option is to weld strips across the sides to make it stronger in the middle to be able to bend the shape on the door.
 
36 Ford? I think I've seen someone on either Ford barn or the HAMB that made those, let me look and see if I can find the thread, it made shed some details for you..
 
Cody Walls drove down from Delaware today so we could punch louvers in the hood sides for 35 Chevy he's been working on, see some of his beautiful work here...


http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cody-walls-builds-a-35-chevy.976318/


After using the samples we punched last month, Cody wanted to run one more test sample with larger louvers to check the flow against where the headlight lines up. Here Cody and Kyle wheel a new test sample...


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Using the Lennox to punch the louvers, stops were riveted in place.


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Clamped to the hood side, we decided on a slightly larger, with more to be added at the rear than the front..


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The Driver's hood side takes it's turn...


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One down.....


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Passenger side....


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All finished up...


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Can't wait to see these on the car..
 
Could you possibly PM me how much it would cost to replicate 3rd Gen Camaro hood louvers? Would like to have functional ones instead of plastic blocked off ones. It would be a little bit before I could order, sitting in Kuwait for 7 months.
 
mitch_04;n79079 said:
Could you possibly PM me how much it would cost to replicate 3rd Gen Camaro hood louvers? Would like to have functional ones instead of plastic blocked off ones. It would be a little bit before I could order, sitting in Kuwait for 7 months.

Mitch, first off thanks for your service. For the hood I'd have to see one up close to insure there are no obstructions.. Unless you're looking for a drop in/bolt in to replace what's there?



anotheridiot;n79093 said:
Do you also use the angle guides to follow your rolled edges?


The rolled edges at the bottom are 1935 Chevrolet, except for about 2" that was added to the length.. So the angle guides were used for the louvers only..
 
MP&C;n79049 said:
36 Ford? I think I've seen someone on either Ford barn or the HAMB that made those, let me look and see if I can find the thread, it made shed some details for you..

well Chevy, same animal I would think, Door is square to the inside, I tried to roll first before bending and got one to look a little better, just cant stop the roll close enough to the bend.
 
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