Can anyone give me some info on installing the cowl to hood seal on a 54 F250? I see I need to remove the old screw type nails. The seal appears to be a round bead on each side, and flat in between the sides. Do you just lay the flat portion over the holes and put the new nails through it in the center, or does it have to be closer to one side or the other of the round bead portion?

 

Originally Ford used a tack (nail) to install the seal. How you position the seal depends more on where the hood lip would contact the cowl. On a few projects I have had to relocate the seal to prevent damaging the paint and by doing so, that seal DID NOT line up with the original location. The purpose of the seal is prevent paint damage, keep things from rubbing and reduce vibration, not necessarily seal anything. If you don't want to use nails, some have used 3m weatherstripping adhesive or stainless screws. I personally like the 3m adhesive. If you do use the tacks, holding them with a pair of needle nose pliers helps. Good luck.

 

I'd like to see how they put those nails in at the factory, while hardly dimpling the cowl. I bet they used a pneumatic gun. Swinging a hammer at freshly painted bodywork never appealed to me, I also used 3M Weatherstrip Adhesive.

 

I re-used the nails. They're ring-shank nails so they are sort of threaded. You can remove them by unscrewing with pliers. I punched a hole in the seal with a scribe and tapped the original nails back into the original holes.
Dan

 

Thanks for the input. I'll give it a try.