Bodywork/hood alignment

69427

69427

The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
Joined
Mar 30, 2008
Messages
3,031
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Clinging to my guns and religion in KCMO.
Trying to get the hood/bodywork alignment figured out. The hood fits nice and flush from the hinges rearward, but the front of the hood is misaligned vertically. From the view from the front bumper I can see the bottom of the hood projecting above the bodywork. At first glance it appears that the front bodywork is adjusted too low/drooping, but the bodywork doesn't seem to like it when I jack up on the front bumper (I've got all the front brackets loosened). Am I missing something?

I've had the body off a couple times and redid some of the front brackets along the way, so please correct me if I'm doing something stupid.
 
I tink you are doing the right "adjustment" to line up the front of the hood. Maybe you could get the body height at the hinge area down somehow?
 
I spend all last automn messing with front clip/hood aligmnent.
Mind you, a '76 front bumper is a heavy beast, I bet yours is MUUUUCH lighter.

What comes to mind is the support rod that connect the radiator support to the front clip reinforcement bar. Since you redid the rad support, maybe something moved over there, letting the front clip getting flatter.
Does the misalignment spread all along the front of the hood or it seems higher at the sides or the center?
 
No Help Here!

I saw a similar question long ago.
The response was that the perfect show cars
are built from the front bumper back! lol

Nothing fits properly, you have to adjust everything.
They left us lots to do from the factory. :)

R
 
I had an absolutely perfect aligned hood when buying the car in '95, put on a Carlisle bought hood for the BB look/bulge....then hit a damn Florida deer that took out both operating headlights, busted them up to junk status....

in that wreck, the front of the bumper area looked fine, but the hood was now higher than the bodywork, I looked and fiddled forever, and never found what happened....

SO, I glued in place a length of PVC water pipe to force the body work into line again center of headlight support to frame, nearly vertical....that strut from the bumper center to the cross support has been eliminated long ago, if anything taps the front bumper, the rad support get killed, yeh, really smart engineering....:hissyfit: AND that would have happened when that Verizon truck backed into the front bumper on the driver's side and busted hell outta the thing but that strut was gone like I said......:clobbered:
 
Well, I've been slowly jacking up the front bodywork, and it's not happy. You can hear the fiberglass creak, telling me that it's not drooped or just hanging cantilevered out there. Also when I lift up on the front it pulls the brackets way out of line with the holes in the side of the frame (above the sway bar). It just seems that the bodywork was already in the right position but that the front foot of the hood has lost some of its arc. The hood was off the car for 2-3 years sitting in a damn hot Florida attic when I was swapping the frame and suspension, but I don't know if that may have been an issue or not.

I think I'm going to lower the front back to where it was and try to figure out a plan B. (I'm not planning on entering any NCRS concourses in the near future so I've still got time to think up a remedy.)
 
I have seen people heat the perimiter of hoods with a heat gun and clamp them to urge them to fit. Maybe that might work?
 
The bodywork on these cars was pretty abysmal from the factory, and it's a whole lot of work to break the bonding strips and re-align everything.
 
BBShark said:
I have seen people heat the perimiter of hoods with a heat gun and clamp them to urge them to fit. Maybe that might work?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been wondering if some heat would help here. Prior to me storing the hood in the hot attic for a couple years the hood fit the bodywork pretty well (considering '69 was a pretty crappy year for build quality). Perhaps I should try putting a slightly weighted box on the front part of the hood each hot sunny track day to see if that will tweak the shape of the hood.
 
Dont try to move the body up, its glued to the header, it can snap off an bow up. Just grind the hood down and fill the body if you need to.
 
Aluminum Hinges

I seem to recall recent aluminum hinges. Any chance the pivot point is a little high?
 
Grampy said:
I seem to recall recent aluminum hinges. Any chance the pivot point is a little high?
Click to expand...

That's a very good question, but this issue popped up a couple years ago when I swapped the body onto the "new" frame. It still had the original hood hinges at the time.

IM001131.jpg

It just seems like every time I unhook the body the hood mismatch gets worse. It seems like a simple thing to figure out or adjust, but it's driving me nuts.
 
What about cutting slices in the perimiter structure in front of the hinges? Then bend it down and glass back together. The front of the hood (in front of the hinges) is just hanging there anyway.
 
You need to remove the header from the fiberglass. Float the front end where you want it to line up with the hood. Now cut your header in half, and bend it to match the the bottom of the surround you just adjusted. Tack it together at the new correct angle, refit your headlights, get them where you want them, which will locate the header in the correct spot. Remove the header again, reweld it fully, and reassemble everything again. Bond it all back together with everything mocked in place.
 
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I appreciate all the advice. Going back to an earlier post, the hood fit just fine four years ago (and the three decades previous that I had owned the car) before I pulled the hood off (and put it in storage) while I was disassembling the car to swap onto the new frame.

What changed (other than possibly the front bend of the hood) while I had the car torn apart?

I've done a lot of mods to this car, and luckily managed to figure out how to do them, saving me a boatload of expense, but this hood misalignment issue/cause has got me completely mystified.
 
I ASSume you know there are shims under the hood hinges....NO?? they are like a W design to fit around the two bolts on each side...

still think my prop made of PVC pipe would cure much of that....:beer:

not that it helps, but my hood had developed a high hood front corner on the driver's side over the past 3 years...it used to fit fine....USED to....past tense....damned if I know why....
 
I was going to comment that the front of the body is flexible. It's held in place with particular piece of steel that's of a U shape with two supporting legs at an angle. I was going to suggest shimming this piece, but it appears from your posting you've explored this solution and it didn't work.

When I bought my 68 in 72 or 73, the hood was horribly mismatched with the body due to a incompetent body repair after a front end collision. I had the front clip redone, with the result that the hood and body matched perfectly. (RIP my bodyman Kelly, a fiberglass master). Several years ago, dropping a ZZ4 into the 68, it appeared I might have a hood clearance problem. I tried using my stone stock 69 and 70 BB hoods. Neither fit!!

Having the hood in attic Florida temps may have been an undoing. After shimming fails, the only way to make a hood really fit is with intrusive fiberglass work. Unbond and adjust the inner fiberglass wheel covers. Maybe have a go at the U channel that surrounds the interior of the hood. Take slices out to bend down the front of the hood. I think all this requires someone with fiberglass expertise.

In the early 1970's I belonged to a Corvette Club where a member was building the "perfect" 67 Coupe. The guy was retired and was fire hosing the car with money in it's restoration. He paid $1500 just to have the hood match the body. No paint, just fiberglass work. That'd probably be $3000 in today's Obama dollars.
 
Advice welcomed!

Took a short break from more "important" things, and took the hood hinges apart and made shorter (-1/4") lower halves. Aligned the hood and it looks pretty good on the front (damn near flush), but obviously at the expense of an increased height mismatch at the hinge area. I can live with that for now. The problem is, while adjusting the hood I got the right side latch stuck (the left rear of the hood is thankfully still free). I'm still trying to get the latch unstuck, but in the mean time I'll take any helpful advice. (I don't want to have to do what Turtle did, and cut the hood open at the latch area. :mad: )

Thanks!
 
Pull the cross over cable if it is the pass side. Or unbolt the latch from underneath. I've done both in the past.
 
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