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I need some help with good alignment. My drivers side alignment is fairly decent but my passenger side is way off. I’ve tried pushing the hood up while pushing the hood up and I can’t get it to go down further I think the hinge may be bent. I’ve attached images to show the huge gap. Any help is appreciated:
From the way it looks in the picture the hood hinge is too high.
You tried loosening the hinge bolts and move it down a little.
When I was putting mine back together 77&79 F250 posted the correct detail of how to align fenders, hood.
I tried to find it but was called short.
Try google to see if it comes up.
Nice looking truck you have there..
I take it they are lubed really good?
Hit the hinges with PB Blaster and work it in.
Hoods & hinges bend when the hinge can not move.
The other is what you got going on as it will not relax enough to sit all the way down.
And yes the hinge(s) could be bent but also look at the frame of the hood to make sure it is not bent.
Dave ----
I used a cherry picker (engine lift) and a short length of rope to lift the hood from center front where the U-shaped latch is. This allowed me to manipulate the hinge on both sides (down in back, up in front) and then tighten it down before anything shifted.
I got the hood mostly fixed. Turns out where the hood bolts to the hinges needed adjustment. The passenger side of the hood was about 1/8 inch closer to the cab than the driver side. I loosened the bolts, closed the hood about halfway and gave the passenger side a good pull and it dropped right down. Still needs a little adjustment but way better than it was.
Remember that these old trucks were put together by workers building WORK trucks not show room pieces like today.
Glad you got it fixed.. To me yours looks great.
Like FuzzFace said,,, Oil those hinges and you will see the difference.
A little collection from fellow FTE members... #1 To get the back of the hood down to line up with the cowl, loosen the 2 very back bolts on the hinge flange where it bolts to the inner fender and then have someone push the hood up standing in front of the truck while you tighten them back down. Not a lot, might take a couple of movements to get it where you want it. Close the hood slow, DON'T SLAM IT, watch the back while it close's. Next, to get the gap the same all the way across you loosen the hood bolts on only the side you want to move, if your closing the gap, tap the back of the hinge arm with your ratchet handle and the hood will move on its own, if you want to widen the gap, loosen the bolts and pull up on the back of the hood and tap the hinge arm on the front side and the hood will slide forward, always close the hood slow after any adjustments to make sure it’s not going hit anywhere.
To tighten the front of the hood, theirs 2 bolts on the hood latch that are slotted, you can see the slots if you look, loosen them and tap the latch down, if you go to much the hood wont latch, bring it back up, I have to slam mine hard to latch so the hood down bounce on the corners.
#2 Hood: Often the hood sits up above the cowl. To fix this, adjust the hinge where it mounts to the inner fender. Up at the front, and down at the rear. Reverse procedure to raise the rear of the hood. The hinges should be lubed with a good lubricant to operate properly or your alignment wont work no matter how long you play with it. (you should be able to almost throw the hood open with the flick of a finger)
#3 Set everything in the middle, hood hinge to inner fender bolts and the hood bracket bolts.
I like to remove the latch at first so I can easily swing the hood open and closed.
If the rear of the hood is sticking up when it is closed you actually adjust the hood to open MORE. Either by lifting the front of the bracket or lowering the rear of the bracket. Sometimes both in combination. The center bolt acts as a pivot.
Once that is done, and it can take a while to get everything nice and the gaps decent you then set the latch height.
If the hood is maxed out forward and is still interfering with the cowl you'll then need to loosen the inner fender to firewall horn bolts, inner fender bolt and radiator core support and move everything forward.
If you're hood is high compared to the cowl loosen the middle bolt and the rear bolt, then open the hood and it will push (rotate) the hinge down and towards the cowl.. Look for the clean marks that the bolt head will leave behind for reference
#4 If you're starting from scratch or close to scratch: Front clip is off or sitting loose. Check or redo cab mounts to make sure they are good, then you can go ahead with the rest. After cab mounts you will check that your door hinges have no play. Now you can adjust your door gap to the cab as the adjustment is in the door hinge. For making the vertical door edge gap consistent between rear-of-door-and-pillar AND horizontal gap of top-of-door-to-roof-of-cab, the fender has to be off so the door hinge bolts going into the cab are accessible(because the fender blocks them otherwise) and can be loosened, so the door can be moved rearward or forward as well as up and down, to gain consistent gap all around while trying to keep the door cove lower than the outer cowl, so that the fender cove will line up to it later. When this gap is set and that set of hinge bolts tightened, then you can set inner fenders between cab and radiator support, leaving inner fender bolts loose, then you can set outer fenders on to line up rad support and cowl mounts, and see how the gap looks between the fender and door, this is where a lot of adjusting can happen of the 4 fenders and rad support and adding washers between rad support and body bushing mount, and maybe bending that middle fender bolt tab by front of door to ease line up. The door doesn't move forward, rearward, or up and down, at this point as that's adjusted already. What the door can do now is be moved away from cab or be tucked closer to the cab with the door striker and door hinge bolts that are bolted into the door, so mark your vertical position to keep that while you adjust on the door hinge in or out to be flush with rear-of-door-to-cab, and front-of-door-to-fender, while also bring both inner/outer fender to where they need to be vertically, horizontally, and flush.
You don't need spacers between door hinges and cab, or between door hinges and door, there is enough adjustment built in to it already to get door to line up. (unless you're dealing with daily driver and don't want to loosen fender, then go ahead and redneck away lol)
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