some time back some one wrote a excellent article on aligning the front hood and fenders and i can not locate that thread and wondered if someone may remember it and how to bring it up.. thanks
joe black

 

Yeah, I should read this too. Anyone know where it is?

 

Here are a couple of old alignment discussions that might help:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/3...ght=align+hood
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/5...ght=align+hood

 

My hood, (reverse tilt) fits great left right, to the cowl, front to the edge of the fenders..

But.. on the drivers fender, where it comes up from the body side, it is straight to the front.. On the passenger side, there is this little kickout, maybe a 1/3 of an inch.. then straight to the front.. of course this gives me a big gap on the passenger side (even all the way down),

I don't have the rubber bumpers installed yet..

Are all the pass side fenders like this?

Sam

 

Sam,

I too have a tilt hood kit ( Mid Fifty) on my 55 and having problems trying to align the fenders and hood. The hood does have a gap on the passenger side that you can stick your finger in, starts near the back of the hood and continues for about 8 to 10 inches, after that the gap is very good all the way to the front of the fender. I can live with it, my problem is when you pull on the front of the hood as its starts raising up from the cowl the sides of the hood at the rear is scraping against the inside lip of the fenders. We put the fender welting behind the fenders and it moved them out about 1/16 of an inch. I am afraid when everything is painted that the paint will take up what little bit of clearance that I now have. Can anyone tell me what is a normal clearance for the area that I am having a problem with. My hood fits good in between the fenders before you start to raise it. Any suggestions would be apprecited.

Thanks,
Charlie

 

Here are a couple pics of mine

drivers side, nice straight edge up from the cab



passenger side, see the little curved out section



and the gap all the way down the hood line



Sam

 

I wish mine looked that good! My gaps are tapered on both sides. Widest spot is about 7/16"

I have to build the fender edge out to close the gaps.

 

Randy, how would you go about building the edge out on the fender to close the gap? Would you have any suggestions on eliminating the problem that I posted with the fender rubbing the inside of the fender lip when pulling up on the front of my tilt hood?

Thanks,
Charlie

 

That's interesting on the fender differences, I don't remember seeing that on mine, I'll have to look again. Charlie, I'd say the only way to avoid your problem would be to raise the back end of the hood before pulling it forward. Isn't there a track and roller system with those kits to guide it?

 

cw -

It's a little difficult to describe (without pics) how I plan to build out the fender edge, but here goes: I plan to cut and fit a strip of sheet metal that will be the new vertical fender edge and gap it to the hood using a filler strip of the right thickness. Then I'll use a few pieces of strip sheet metal to tack that edge to the fender across the gap. Between the strips, I can then add some permanent pieces to support the new Then I'll cut the tacks on the temp strips and fill that gap. So, basically, I'll be adding a new "angle" to build the edge in. Clear as mud, huh? I thought about just building it up with body filler, but I don't like any whackable edge being just bondo. It damages too easily. So I always prefer a metal edge, then just fill behind it to get the shape.

As to a rubbing condition, I would slice and move one of the edges. The hood strikes me as the easier one to move. Slicing that edge along it's length, then re-tacking it back to the hood. Messy and tough for warpage control, it is a way to regap that area. I would cut about 1/4 back (into the hood) from the edge so that the piece I cut off had some geometry to it to hold its shape, then grind some more off the hood edge to create the gap I wanted. Then tack the removed angle back to the hood. I would tack everything well with the hood on the truck so that the fitting would repeat and I would know what the end result was looking like as it progressed. I wouldn't trust using just dimensions when the hood was off the truck. After it was well tacked, I would remove the hood and finish weld the whole seam, probably from the inside of the hood.

Henry never intended his Effies to be gapped like a Lexus. And the more I work on mine, the more clearly evident that is. I guess if it fit well enough to keep the rain out, it was good.

Anybody else got some ideas? We're all ears here.

 

To build out the fender edge I would have a sheetmetal shop bend an L shaped piece of steel as long as the fender edge with one leg of the L the height from the bottom of the channel to the top of the fender. Trim the other leg in a long taper to match the space to be filled, and weld in place. If the channel also needs to move in towards the hood, then split it along the bottom corner and pull it towards the hood before welding it to the bottom of the filler strip. Make sure the top of the filler strip is at the same height as the original fender edge to keep any metal filling to a minimum.

 

I will take these ideas over to the body shop and see if they might be able to adapt them to my hood.

The hood does have a track and roller on each side, we did raise the track up a little and it id help. It looks to me like the track should have been designed for the hood to start lifting up off of the cowl as soon as you pulled it forward. Mine rolls forward on the tracks for about an inch or so before it starts up the incline of the track. Once it start up the incline the rear of the hood starts clearing the top of the fenders okay.

 

now you're gonna make me go check my tilt hood setup to make sure I don't get the edge rubbing..

I'm trying to get things OFF my list of tasks.. not adding more ON
(and why are the new tasks always near the top of the list?)

Sam

 

May need a redesign on those tracks!

 

I was thinking the same thing, maybe trying to design another track. I did a search and came up with a very good tilt hood article that someone posted a long time ago. It gave me some ideas on trying my hand at making a different track.

Charlie