The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop hood alignment

Is there any instruction on hood alignment for a 54 1/2 ton? i have read the shop manual and other posts, but was looking for a how to with pictures. any help would be great! thanks

ok, i have tried the process for aligning the hood, I have two problems... first, the front corners of the hood are sticking out (not up, but out) about 1/2" out past the fenders. the second...there is a gap between the bottom of the hood and fenders about 1/4" all the way up the sides. The hood used to line up perfect but then my truck popped in gear and hit my saw that was sitting in front of it...put a dent in hood and I am assuming it screwed up alignment. but I dont think i need to adjust fenders. just curious as to which adjustments need to be made for the problems I have. thanks!

Hey OT54, I was trying to follow in my mind but that was popped when I read you ran into a saw (on a bench/sawhorses/cement post?) and 'dented' the hood. So now I need cause I have this in my mind now that I can't shake
I personally had my pristine hood standing on end for weeks before I knocked it over and dented the ridges (58 hood) but good

if its "only 1/2" I'd take a good long look under the fenders and see if you can see any "marks" around where the fender bolts are to see if the fender was slide back/down as the bolt holes are more like "slots" and that could happen.
.....or maybe the radiator housing slipped at the bottom.Everything bolts to that so its likely.

well, I just started the truck and it was in high idle from cold start... doing a walk around just to check everything and boom, truck slipped into gear from nuetral. jumped the 2x4 in front of the tire and went right into my miter saw on a stand. felt like i was going to throw up! backed the truck up and it dented the lower left corner of hood and top bar of the grill. grill was easy fix... just removed all paint and pounded dent out and filled then repainted. hood is going to be harder since the hood is a lot larger than the top of the grill... i will get you some pictures but i didnt take any of the damage at the time of the accident. one of those moments you dont want to remember haha!!

im trying to upload pics for everyone to see and maybe give me some pointers.. i am frustrated and really dont know how to fix the hood alignment. the front of the hood sticks out about 3/4 inch. also the front corners stick up a little. anyone know how to upload pics here or i could email them to you. any help would be great! thanks

Up load the pic's to an on line "Cloud" service like photobucket, picasa, or others.
Then from your service there will be a button or tab or somthing that lets you 'Link" or "Embed" into a website or email or whatever. This site is limited on server space as well as mindful plenty folks here may still be on dial up so "embedding" isn't used. So you select 'Link' highlight and copy the digits (pictures address actually) and then when writing here on the bolt in the "Full Reply Screen" or New Thread select the little blue button up there next to the smiley face and paste the link in the pop up window.
Next pop up lets you label or rename the digits/address into something real people as opposed to the Corporate variety can read.
good luck and we'll see ya next week sometime...(just kiddin)

thanks for the info, I attached the link to the pictures. i am wondering if my hood was warped with the dent... i just cant put my finger on why its not aligning correctly. could my hood hinges be worn or bent? there is a lot of play between the two sides of the hood on the hinges. just wierd how everything fit perfect before and now I cant get anything to work. thanks again for all the help here!

hood pics

i am wondering if my hood was warped with the dent...

I was wondering the same thing. Is there a way to wrap a ratchet strap around it and 'pull it in' a little just to see how and where that changes things? Or is there anything that looks like it shifted underneath (or can be adjusted) where the support braces run?
I don't know the AD hoods so this is just shooting in the dark.

Like that Blue a lot by the way!

to eliminate if the hood is warped why not just take the springs loose along with the hinges and see if the hood sets correctly.

Does the latch sit correctly when you let the hood down to latch...I'm still thinking somethng below the hood moved..

I wondered that at first as well Achipmunk. Like if there were any missing radiator shims or something like that... right up until I saw it had run into something at the front. Then I started leaning towards the hood itself being sprung some. Loosing the hinges is a good idea as well as anything else that may be keeping the hood in an 'unnatural' position. (natural here being what ever IT wants to do, if that makes any sense)
Maybe someone could take a measurement of their hood and report back what that is for comparison.

Check the gap between the hood and the cowl when the hood is in the down position. To do this you may have to pull the hood latch out but no big deal to do that. In fact its best to have the latch out anyway when you do align a hood. My has about a 1/4" gap all the way across from side to side....I guess we're trying to find the needle in a haystack here?

i have right at 1/4 inch all the way around. if I were to make it any less, the corners still pop out. its like I need to shove hood back an inch and then shave the back of the hood down where it meets the cowl... seems like a lot of work

I took another look @ the pic's and realized I had things turned around. At first I thought the hood was wider than the cowl in Pic's 5 & 6, and now see it's narrower so that it appears it needs to spread a bit at the back not shrink so forget that "strap" comment.
So the new question becomes have you done as Achip suggested to see how it sits with no hinge or latch points? If so how about a second batch of pic's showing the difference if any?
Also can you post more pic's of what's going on at the front?
I'm wondering if you have the radiator and grill supports in proper aligment, i.e shims and spacers all present?

yeah, I will try and get some more pics up soon. I know that the hood stuck out a bit before the hit but definately not this much. I did take the grill top support out but i didnt notice any shims at all. does anyone have any pics of where I could try and shim it or put spacers in to help? thanks!

Right hand column just below middle of the page #1
Anti squeak spacers

I know the AD's are different than what my 58 used but there are body shims you can get at FLAPS that can be used to spread the front fenders in or out top and bottom as well.

Please excuse my ignorance as I don't have an AD here to compare to, but here are my thoughts...

1) I realize the first picture is not taken from dead on, but it "appears" the hood is off-center from the grille. Something to check. I'd suggest removing or opening the hood and take some cross-diagonal measurements from like points on the front of the fenders to like points on the firewall or door hinges.

2) Not sure on the core support shims, that is a possibility of mis-alignment, but IMO the fenders are installed too far back (see where they don't align with leading edge of hood) and are also pinched in the front, or installed too close together on the core support. There doesn't appear to be enough room between the fenders for the hood to drop between. Driving on imperfect roads will further highlight this issue with paint between adjacent panels rubbing.


As an example of how panel alignment issues can compound problems, here's a thread of a similar front end sheet metal alignment issue on a 36 GMC I had to fix....

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=106178

The name of the game is to be able to identify what is causing each issue. IMO you have multiple issues going on there...