The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Alignment issues

Would appreciate any help on this one. I am putting together my 55.2 half ton Chevy and the hood is not lining up with the passenger side fender at the front. It lines up perfectly at the cowl (see photos), but is off by 7/16" at the front. The driver side is right on in the front, but the gap between the rear of the hood and top of the cowl is rather large. I can live with that but not the front being off so far. I have maxed out the upper hinges on the passenger side, should I drill them out a bit or shim the hinge to firewall attachment point to move it out further? Could it be that way because driver side is so far forward? Any ideas would be great. Here are pictures:
55.2 Chevy pictures.

are those EDP black pieces repro? could be a problem .... you can't expect the hood to fit until the fenders and front pieces do, it looks like the top tie bar isn't bolted tight on the pass side, how does the grill fit?

looks like the driver fender needs to come up at the front [to narrow the gap at top rear] - the pass side needs to come in at the front to even the gap at the cowl, a thin shim at the back top might do it, or that odd cup at the back that the fender bolts to might be out of place a bit, did you work on those?

the place to start is the rad support, there should be rubber pieces and washers under it that will shift the fenders up or down at the front, so down or up at the back - also it mostly controls the spread of the fenders at the front, and it determines the position of the latch panel at the front, which will affect the position of the hood - it's a pushme pullyou situation, rarely can one piece can be shimmed and fiddled to fit until they all fit .... frustrating at the best of times

also you need to keep in mind that the fit and finish on these trucks was "good enough" from the factory, not perfect
and if the cab was off, the mounts there will affect the fit of the front

Bill

Bill,
The drivers side is a repro, everything else is original. I will add a shim on the d-side rad support to get the front up a bit and the back top to the rear more. Besides that the d-side fender lines up better than the p-side original...go figure.

I can't squeeze the top front fender any closer to the radiator support to tighten that p-side cowl gap. It's right up against it. After looking at my own photos it seems like the fender might be bent at the rear where you mentioned that "odd cup", I don't remember hammering that area... that may just close up that gap.

I will mess with the rad support some more, maybe push everything back a 1/16 and to the p-side 1/16, add a shim, etc. What a pain. But I guess that is part of the journey.

I hear a lot about the 55.2 being notoriously bad with fit and finish, but how bad is bad? A fender to hood gap of 7/16" would be unacceptable, right? I could see 1/16" but more?

Thanks for your help

So I shimmed, and I tweaked, and managed to get the hood to line up a little better, but it was still way off. My father-in-law, stops by and I explain the situation. Now, he knows nothing about trucks or cars, but he simply asks, "do you think the front of the hood is bent in on that side?" It doesn't look like it, but after close inspection there is a hairline crack at the very front corner. I start bending and tweaking and volia! It fits perfect. Lesson: no matter who gives you advice, take the time to listen.

Glad to hear you finally got it worked out. It took Al and I pretty much the better part of a day to finally get the hood aligned on his '54. I can't tell you how many times we stood around scratching our heads trying to figure out what we needed to do and finally after adjusting the hood supports one last time it just fell into place.