hood adjustment

[warren57]

Replaced the hinges on my 57. Now need to get everything adjusted. The space between the hood and cowl is simple enough. the height at the cowl is ok.
My problem is the hood latch on the front. It is off centered to the right.
Can anyone give me a proper proceedurd to follow to get everything where it belongs.
I was thinking of loosing the hinge bolts on the firewall, shutting the hood, adjusting the gaps and tightening the firewall bolts that go in from under the dash. Then opening the hood and tightening the bolts that go in from the engine side.
Let me know if I'm thinking right or if there is a proven proceedure!
Thanks

[chevynut]

Is the hood latch off, or are the fenders not centered? Set the cowl gap, then you can adjust the hood latch some. If it's too far off, I'd check the fenders to see if they're in the right place.

[warren57]

Is the hood latch off, or are the fenders not centered? Set the cowl gap, then you can adjust the hood latch some. If it's too far off, I'd check the fenders to see if they're in the right place.

I assuming they are fairly close, everything lined up with the old hood hinges. Right now the side to side gap is off, hopefully the hinge adjustment will fix that. Bumper is mounted with stock brackets and the fender clearance is pretty much lined up equally on each side and the cowl mount and door alignment looks pretty good with the fender, so I don't think the fenders are to bad. Of course a little here and a little there does add up!!
I'll keep you posted.

[Rick_L]

Take the latch plate off completely, lower the hood, and check the gaps/alignment. That will tell you whether the rest is adjusted correctly.

Then work on the latch.

[warren57]

Take the latch plate off completely, lower the hood, and check the gaps/alignment. That will tell you whether the rest is adjusted correctly.

Then work on the latch.

Thanks, set cowl gap and height. Fender gap good along the sides. The issue starts at the lower front edges of hood to fender, just about where the hood bar attaches to the hood. About 3/8 in gap on right and tight/rubbing on the left. Pretty much exactly where the latch was off. The old hinge rivets were so loose, the hood moved where ever it needed to close. The new hinges don't!
So, I,m thinking the lower front of the fenders needs to shift over to the left about 3/16" to get everything right.
Looks like the center radiator support has some adjustment so guess that's where I will start.
Any suggestions on properly setting fender gaps would be appreciated. Think I will pull the bumper and start looking at how everything else is mounted.

[chevynut]

The holes in the radiator support mount on the frame are huge, and you should be able to move it over enough. I don't see why you'd need to pull the bumper, it's fairly independent of the front sheetmetal.

[Rick_L]

One reason you'd need to do something with the bumper is if the bumper brackets had been bent/modified to accomodate the fender/radiator support's bad adjustment.

On the other hand, if the bumper brackets are as they should be, the bumper is going to fit the fenders better too.

[warren57]

Here are a couple of pictures, not to good, but you can see the gaps at the hood bar, the right side has a tapered gap and the left side is rubbing. Now the gap from the cowl, down the top of the fenders is fairly even all the way to these points. Just seems to me the fenders have a alignment issue at the lower ends in the front.
I am going to take the hood latch off to insure the hood is sitting with no twists, but that's not going to effect these gaps.
Any thoughts on what to check or where to start?
Thanks

[chevynut]

Your fenders are "twisted". They're in about the right place at the top of the headlights, but the grille and splash pan are too far to the passenger side. I'd loosen basically all of the sheetmetal bolts around the grille and inner fenders and try to push everything to the driver's side. I had this same issue on my Nomad until I corrected it. You may also need to shim the upper grille support, but to me it looks like a centering problem.

[warren57]

Thanks, that will give me a place to start!!