The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop HOOD QUESTION

I put a GMC hood and grille on my 1953 Chevrolet 3/4 ton. Everything fits good except the hood. it seems to be about 3/8" too short to fill up the area on the cab that it fits into. Is anybody aware of different size hoods or is it a Chevy vs. GMC thing?

here's a picture if you can download and zoom in.
http://i621.photobucket.com/albums/tt292/53monster/repaint/k248.jpg

Looks like either the front of the fenders/grille are too high or you need to fix the cab front mounts. The cabs are identical except for the trim. The hood gap will close up correctly if the nose is dropped. GMC's and Chevies have different frames and radiator mounting setups due to the longer GMC engine, so you need to make sure the nose is mounted to the radiator frame correctly and that the radiator frame is mounted in the right spot.

I know the fenders aren't lined up right yet, ignore the fenders and look at the body line where the hood meets the cab. It is sitting down tight on the top but at the bottom see how the gap opens up. It's like the hood isn't tall enough, it will never fill up that gap. I don't know where the hood came from or even what year it is. since I got it with a 54 grille it may be a 54 hood.

is it totally tight right across the top? appears to be crowned slightly more than the cowl, if it is, spreading to flatten it may be what's needed, that would lower the corners .... rather than being 'not tall enough', the curve of the hood corners seem to be slightly different than the curve on the body/cowl - the curve starts higher up on the hood, the straight is shorter but the bottom edge is fine with the fenders

Bill

Yes it is good and tight across the top and sitting on the cowl rubber. Your observation of that curve is what I'm talking about. The hood doesn't seem to be "tall" enough for the cab. although the fenders are real close in appearance. they are only loosely bolted on for now til I get the hood right.

if the bottom of the hood lays on the fenders well without the same kind of gap then the hood must be tall enough, it's just that the curve is different, which may be a function of different years, different plants, past body work, who knows .... get yer thinkin cap on and you might come up with the fix - or find another hood?

Bill

Are you hinting that I am missing something obvious? If it were too tall I could trim it down, which is maybe what somebody else did to it. I don't think so though, it sure looks like a factory edge. If it's too short, I have no clue how to stretch it.

no, nothing obvious, it appears it doesn't fit the cowl shape satisfactorily, who knows why, but it's not a Chev-GMC difference

it may be like 4onthefloor sez, the nose needs to drop down, which would bring the back bottom corners of the hood back toward the cab, maybe enough to split the difference by opening the gap across the top a bit

if it matches up with the fenders reasonably, it's not 'too short', if it were longer it'd then stand too high across the top 'cuz the fenders would push it up overall - like I said, the mis-match is just the corner radius, if it doesn't look like you might be able to fix that by repositioning things [or adding to the hood], then I'd say you're on the hunt for a different hood, one that fits better there's always 'fit and finish' problems even from the factory on these ol trucks, and worse when when mixing years

Bill