The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Hood to fender gap

I’m in the process of aligning the hood. Making good progress. The reason for this question is does the hood sit high when latched?

If your hood is latched in those pics, you need to adjust the latch bolt on the hood to be closer to the hood panel. Loosen the lock nut and turn the bolt in a turn or so at a time and recheck.

Do you have the hood "bumpers" installed ? If yes, adjust hood per klhansen's recommendations until the hood bottoms out on the bumpers....

I removed the latch to aid in alignment. Also no bumpers. Without the latch and the hood is in the down position, the hood will not go down any farther.

Sounds like your hinges may need adjusting then. Or maybe your radiator support needs to be shimmed up. Did you go through the adjustment procedure HERE or HERE?

The hood needs to be adjusted first so that the rear of the hood makes a tight fit on the cowl seal and the gap between rear of the hood and the cowl is parallel all the way across. Once that is done, you don't ever touch the hood again.
You need to install the hood bumpers before you adjust the fenders to the hood.
I wrote the procedure to do all of this in Kevin's second hyperlink above. I have received a lot of positive feedback from it. Keep in mind, there are no shortcuts or easy fixes. It's a lengthy procedure that needs to be done in a certain order.

Are the fenders original or reproductions?

As KHansen said you need to confirm that your radiator support height is correct. With you hood all the way down how does the hood align with the cowl on the sides? Assuming that is correct you will need to adjust the fenders up to meet the hood per 52Carl's procedure.

Anyone who is utilizing my tech tip for adjusting the front clip of '47-'55.1 trucks, but runs into trouble along the way, feel free to PM me.
Hopefully I can help you get through it.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I’m remodeling one of my 3 daughters bathroom. I did adjust the hinges and the hood to cowl gap is good. The fender’s are original but not the hood. I did adjust the core support. All things are aligned well. Hi one more question, how on earth do the hinges work?

87GN, I'm curious why you used different primer for various parts.

87GN, it looks from your pictures that you need to swing the nose of the hood to the driver's side a touch. It appears the the gap to the cowl is a little larger on the driver's side. Per the instructions, an even gap is the first thing that needs to be dealt with. But you're pretty close. The hinge arms are designed to move the hood forward just a touch as it opens.

The hood was primed before I purchased the truck. Yes the fender and grill are black and the cab is black mixed with gray. When I epoxied the bare metal I used black. Next, I applied 2 gray urethane coats. Then I blocked the gray and fixed any problems that the blocking exposed. Once this process was complete I applied 2 coats of black. Tomorrow and Saturday I will adjust the cowl to hood gap.

The fenders are original the hood is not.

Judging from your recent pics, your hood needs more adjustment. You need to do some homework to understand all that is involved with adjusting the hood with the hinges. That process is all laid out in my Tech Tip. The hood is not fully adjusted until the hood springs are attached and the hood hinges are once again adjusted. That is all in that Tech Tip as well.
You will need the hood bumpers installed on the hood and the upper radiator baffle (that is what the hood latch is bolted to) for final adjustment.

I may have the hood aligned. I got the hood to cowl gapped to 40mm on the passenger side and 39mm on the driver’s side. Lowered the nose. Yea. Every thing will come apart for wet sanding and paint. I will have all the hood and fender parts for the final assembly by then.

Looks much better.

To steal a suggestion from Carl52, drill a couple small holes thru each hinge into the cab so you can use them to realign the hinges in exactly the same place using drills or dowels when you reassemble.

87GN,
Have you put a 4" bock under the nose of the hood, then have an assistant push down on rear of the hood while you loosen the hinge bolts until the rear edge of the hood makes contact with the cowl seal at the center? You need to do this prior to reattaching the hinge springs. That procedure takes out the slack in the rivets of the hinges, allowing the hood to close properly with the springs installed.

Good idea removing the slack in the rivets. I will do so at the final install. Thanks everyone.