Hood alignment help

[Missyblue]

Hey again we finally got our front end all together which is super exciting thanks to all your help. My hood is a mess and I have been trying to read forums and am struggling was curious if you have any tips. It basically sits too far back on the cowl of the truck and too high. Also bigger gap on passenger side than driver so I need multiple adjustments. I attached a few photos so you can see my dilemma and so you can see my hinges.
Thanks

[mongocanfly]

looks kinda like your hinge needs to drop down the firewall and your hood needs to go forward...id set the hood to the cowl first and then you may have to move the fenders and radiator support around some to fit hood

[dsraven]

first, since the paint looks good, run some masking tape on the edges where the contact points may be. then if parts bump together the paint may not get scratched.
check the door and hood hinges for wear to ensure you aren't fighting an uphill battle. check the cab mounts for integrity for the same reason
check the door gaps at the rear, adjust doors to get good gaps on the cab and line up body lines
adjust the fenders to the doors, adjusting the fenders at the rear top mount, with shims, affects the body line adjustment and height to cowl
adjust the rad support with shims to get the fender gaps against the door like you want. more shims under rad equals more gap at the bottom of the door and vice versa.
lay the hood on without hinges to check the fit. shim the width of the rad support against the inner fenders to get the gap correct on the front. there are also height adjusters on the cowl for the rear.
when you get the hood fitting well install the hood hinges. if there is no engine in the truck you can have a guy under the hood adjusting the hinges while guys on the outside are giving advice on up, down, forward or rearward. always open the hood slowly after an adjustment because lots of guys have lost paint on the edges at this time.
good luck

[bowt1ed]

As stated, first adjust/shim front end to gap correctly. Once done, if the back of the hood is still raised and you can easily push it down to the correct place (kind of like helping the springs a bit), you may need to shim the upper hinge bolt out. This changes the rotation point, allowing the spring to pull the hood down where it belongs. One 1/8" shim on each side. between top hinge (bolt hole) and firewall usually does it.

Cheers, Jim

[MARTINSR]

Here is a photo on where to shim it to lower the rear of the hood. But first.....

Did you have these panels aligned before you painted? You SHOULD have, that is when you align parts, then mark, remove, paint and reassemble and done deal. I know I did this on my Gran Sport and still the hood was up in the back. I shimmed it down and then someone pointed out to me that I had powdercoated the hinges, maybe they were simply not "happy" and moving freely. Sure enough, after I lubed them they moved more freely and the hood came down. So I see that those hinges look newly painted, maybe the paint is making the hinge not move as freely. The hinge is in that open position when you paint them remember (if the spring was on at the time) and the areas that rub together when the hinge is moving into the down position will be covered with paint!

So lube it FIRST and open raise and lower the hood many times to get it moving freely.

After that, then you can think about shimming the hood down at the points where the arrows are in this photo. It seems odd as hell to shim the hood down, I know, but look at it as said in the previous post, you are "rotating" the hinge to close further down.

It also looks like you need to go forward a little too, do that first so the hood doesn't hit the cowl. If it ends up too far forward once the rear is lowered, that's an easy fix to move it back, but hitting the cowl is NOT an easy fix.

NOW, all this is taking into account that the front fenders and such were all aligned properly! If you painted a bunch of replacement parts and such and never trail fitted them prior to paint, you are in for a BIG project and we need to look at a bunch of other stuff so let us know if that is what you did.



Brian

[Missyblue]

Thank you for the tips.
Brian, the truck was painted before i got it. It is original parts and not replacement panels but the guys son did it and it's not the best job so honestly I don't even think they removed panels to paint them. The paint job isnt perfect but works for us for now. Priority for me is getting her driving for my dad. Pretty sure it was painted all in place. I just put the front end on but haven't done the radiator support. Was just so far trying to make sure I have all my parts and pieces and trying to find all the bolts I need so wasn't wanting to put on too much that I'm going to have to tear out to get an engine in. But sounds like I may need to put in the radiator support to help with some of this alignment issues possibly. Thank you for the photo showing where I should address. And to clarify by shim are you meaning to add like a washer or such behind the bolt? Ill try the lubricating 1st as well

[MARTINSR]

You might as well install the rad support but that hood issue hasn't anything to do with it and you actually align the whole front end TO the hood which you first align to the cowl.

Lube those hinges, they may be a lot of the issue.

Brian

[MARTINSR]

And yes, it may not be perfect but it looks very nice for your dad to ENJOY driving!

Brian

[mongocanfly]

"[And to clarify by shim are you meaning to add like a washer or such behind the bolt? ]"
any shims would need to go between the hinge and firewall/or hood...washers will work

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

"[And to clarify by shim are you meaning to add like a washer or such behind the bolt? ]"
any shims would need to go between the hinge and firewall/or hood...washers will work

Yes they go between the hinge and the hood or firewall to space the two apart. But to clarify they are only to be put where I put the red arrows in this case.


Brian

[mongocanfly]

^^^el-correcto^^^

[Missyblue]

Thanks for the clarification. I'm waiting on help. Dad's back wednesday and I'll give it a try and keep you posted. Again much appreciated