Labaron Hood Vent install with Drip Pans
 

I don't have 25 posts but I thought this would fit in this section of the Forum:

I have been looking at the Labaron Hood Vent installs and thought they looked great so I decided to do an install on my hood. I am about 6 years behind the curve but I wanted to install the Labaron drip pans also so I thought it would make a good post.

This is the Labaron Hood:

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The flip side:

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This is what the drip pans look like from underneath:

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This is what the drip pans look like from the top of the hood

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To remove the drip pans I had to grind off a number of spot welds. Then I had to cut them apart and bend up the sides and fab an extension to reach between the drip pans.

This is how they look mounted on the underside of the Jeep hood. Lots of cutting and shaping and soldering. I added tabs to attach them to the hood at the back (bottom edge in picture)

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Along the top I used a square tube that slid into a square hole I cut in the hood on one side.
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On the other side I cut a notch that allowed the bar to side into. Then a screw to hold it in place.

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I cut out the frames that held the hood vents in place to fit in under the hood bracing:

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This hood came from the junk yard. I did not want to mess up my original hood. I cut out the holes 1/16 inch larger than the outside dimensions of the inserts so they could rest in the frames attached underneath:

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I stripped the paint off the donor Jeep hood from the junk yard. The paint was in poor shape.

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I epoxied in the frames around the holes.

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I painted the underside of the hood:

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Drip pans installed. The water runs from the driver's side toward the front of the hood, across the connection and down hill toward the fire wall in the passenger side drip pan and drains in front of the fire wall. Both drip pans are vented around the sides. I installed a Cadillac junk yard hood light centered along the bottom of the hood.

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A friend painted the top of the hood at is body shop:

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It was way too much work. If I had to do over I would probably just mount the vents directly to the hood and skip the mounting frames from the Labaron hood. But the drip pans were worth the trouble.

Sweet for sure

Nice work bruh
Im having mine match my body color too

nice those look good. I just cut the side vents out of an old stainless bar b que grill and riveted them in.I wish i looked for labaron vents now

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What did you use to strip the paint on the hood? Aircraft paint stripper? That looks like it worked really well. And very nice job on the hood vents as well!

paint stripper
 

To strip the paint off the top of the Jeep hood I used the equivalent of Zip Strip Industrial grade from the hardware store. I strip a lot of paint off projects and I have never seen it work like that. It just sat there for 10 minutes and then started popping off. It even made a little crinkling sound. I just scooped it off with a wide putty knife. I used the same stuff on the parts from the Labaron hood and that paint just softened and had to be worked with a wire brush and scraped off. So it must just be that type of paint Jeep used. It was original paint with a seal coat.

that came out good! the added step with the drip pans made it all that much better

That's awesome, very nice work! :thumbup1:

Very nice!

Very factory like install, nice job! Definitely like the way you kept the drip pans.

Beautiful man! looks like factory work !

Nice work, looks great!

I have the same vents - the drip pans. Was your reason more for looks? I did mine to allow the heat to escape and havent had any issues with water/snow. Does the drip pans in your opinion defeat my reason for installing? Or have you noticed the heat escaping with the pans ?

Beautiful work!!!
:cheers::thumbup::thumbup: