came across this pic on another website. look at that hood fitment on a new 53 !! pretty funny. no wonder we are having trouble 50 years later.....

[IMG][/IMG]

 

Excellent point!

 

I've probably gotten a few people upset when I said it before, but these were poorly made vehicles back then and haven't gotten any better with 60+ years of abuse. They were built as tools and were meant to be worked to death. I doubt very much if anyone on the line back in the '40s and '50 expected these old work horses to be around this long.

 

To me it looks like the truck hood is on the safety catch and not fully down. I'm not saying Ford was perfect, but the body panel fit was better than that. GM was notorious for belt-lines not lining up between hoods, bodies, doors, etc.

 

I'm not so sure. I was standing beside my dads 50 Custom car yesterday when a really old man walked up. We were talking about the car and I mentioned the hood wasn't fitting right. He smiled and admitted that he worked for Ford on the line in 53 hanging fenders on the cars. He said they would pull cars off the line if there were problems and take a big pry bar to them. Then he laughed and said all of them went right back on the line regardless of whether they fixed it or not. I told him about this picture and he just laughed. Before he walked away, I asked him if he worked on the trucks, and he said no.

 

Seems to me that fit and finish was not a real issue back in the 40's & 50's as it is today.
As long as they worked and carried the load it was good.

My 48 F1 came from a mill in Minesota, ( still has the logo on the fenders) and I am sure it was overloaded most trips. Judging by the 4 piece brake drum I pulled off maintenance was not a strong suit either!
Amazing that it still moved with metal brakes ( no lining left ) cutting into and destroying the drum!

 

True, they did not fit. Thrown together with union labor. Quality control very poor. I had a dear departed friend who worked at the end of the Thunderbird assembly line in the 1950s and 1960s. His job, fix what was not right or did not work as the vehicles came off the line. The stories he told.
That picture looks like it could be at such out staging area where they were 'fixing' problems. The hood does not appear to be closed. Notice the tec. in the background with the hood up on another vehicle.

 

Standard "Fitment" tools of the day - A piece of 2x4 and a mid-size ballpeen hammer - Note: The hammer was mid-size so that it fit in more places so you didn't have to carry two.

 

My grandfather was a retired Tool & Die Maker for GM. He told me many times that if something didn't fit it was either pulled or pushed to make it close as possible... Then they (Tool & Die workers would rework the molds to improve fit unless it was something that was acceptable by the standard of the days...

 

While I am sure they were never perfect, as we all know, when they came off the line, that picture shows a hood that is not shut all the way. Look down the whole line of the hood, it is obvious that it isn't shut all the way. Look at the line of the car next to it, it's up just a little bit. I agree, that the hoods appear to be open still, not misaligned. I do, also, agree that finding a nicely lined truck when new would be all but impossible.

 

Come on guys, I know that the fit and finish on these trucks weren't great, but that hood is not closed all the way. JMHO, Jag

 

LOL I had to laugh when I read you post! I have worked for an auto manufacturing company for 11 years now and believe it or not, those are still the tools of the day! I walk across a cat walk through the plant everyday from the paint shop to the guard shack and it takes me right above the door line and many times I look down to see an associate with a 2x4 and a rubber mallet working on the fitment of a door! I've seen them push pull and twist a hood or door to make it fit correctly. I just fixed the drivers door on my 54 with a 2x4 and now it shuts and latches great!

 

This is more like the way it should close.


brian...

 

I'm with you Jag...I think that Mr Whitecoat didn't shut it tight after marking on his clipboard.

 

Mr. Whitecoat is funny. You know that they just found some guy to stand down there so that it looked official in the photo!