The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Aligning hood/fenders

I am doing frame off resto of my 1950 3100. Currently I am test fitting the front end prior to final welding in of new full outside cowl patch. Replacing the outside cowl had less to do with rust and more to do with an old slide hammer and thick bondo repair of damage from driver's door being sprung too far open. I have replaced fenders with originals, but new to my truck. I have rebuilt door hinges and I believe my repairs as to fit and finish, have been at least as good as the factory work on these trucks. I have spent the last couple of weekends trying to get everthing lined up and am getting frustrated.

Things like: The "for every action their is a reaction" rule, line up one thing throw off three others; The back of hood in slightly low at center and slightly out at both back bottom edges; The front corners of hood don't align with fender. The front of driver's door, top to bottom is consistantly in from the cab contour by about 3/8 inch, so that the edge of the door rubs/catches on edge of cowl panel.

I know the cure for most of this is time, fussing around and a curse here and there. But I do have some specific questions I hope the collective wisdom might have some answers for.

1. Hood adjustment procedure in shop manual says first measure and set the length of the adjustable fender support rods and you are done with this adjustment. Is this true or can I attempt to adjust these rods to align things?

2. I need to move the whole front of the driver's door out away from the cab and the manual says must bend hinges to do so. How do you bend the hinges to do so? Specifically: use heat? block door a certain way? Remove the hinges?

3. What is the most shimming you have seen done under the radiator core support? When I took my truck apart I had one thin sheet metal shim in there. Currently I have the support shimmed up over a 1/2 inch and quite frankly the whole front end alignment was better when I temporarily threw about an inch high block under the support. I am assuming that this is too much and my problems are else where, but who knows.

4. The Manual shows how to tweak the hood at the rear center brace for if the hood is tight at the sides and high in the center. They don't say how to fix the opposite, low in the rear center and out at the back sides. Question is, is it just the reverse, would you try to shim the center screws at the brace, rather than the outside screws?

Sorry for the length of this and thanks in advance for your assistance.
Steve O

This is a real pain in the $%^ job and I cringed when you said you had to replace cowling. All I can say is search the topic in here and read all the threads. This little bit of rebuilding took me over a month and I settled for the last outcome as the best of all possible evils. Each truck is different and there are no good answers for your task, just keep tweaking until you're tweaked out. No rules. just results is what you want to keep in mind. I finally quit when one posted answer said that as a 30 year experienced rebuilder, he always showed his trucks with hood open. Holy cow!

Nifty 50 2,

Do a search for "hood alignment" in this forum...there is tons of information.


Stuart.

Here is procedure for hood alignment. that is found on the chevytrucks.org Technical Area.

don't forget about the cab.... you may need to shim it too to get everything to line up