Jim,
My truck is a 1956, but we had the same kind of issue and after many hours working on the hood my body man asked for the original hood hinges. He put then on and the issues went away...note, we also did all of the fitting before paint.
It's also hard to use a tape measure on our trucks because the left and right side are not exactly mirror images of each other from the factory. So 1/4" here and 3/16" there is normal...
Mike B
