Hood fitment problems
 

I did some neccessary repairs to my hood, mostly the leading edge and filling emblem holes. Stripped it down to bare metal in preparation bondo and epoxy primer. I'm having a slight problem with fitment, it seems that there is too much crown in the hood at the cowl. The hood has fairly even gaps of 3/8'' at the cowl but sits high in the center. Looks like the brace might be bent in the area the brace rods bolt to. I'm using the forward tilt hood kit. Gaps are fairly good between fenders and hood also but passenger side is tighter than driver side but both sides it appears the rear of the fenders need to come up to conform with the hood edge by at least 1/4" but have no room for movement. Not sure how I'm going to rectify the problem. Any of you run into any of these problems:-X20

https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...237821&width=1

This shows how much the fender needs to come up
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https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...237822&width=1

This shows the hood to cowl gap 5/16'' on passenger side and 3/8'' on driver side. The gap between hood and fender passenger side 3/16'' and 5/16'' driver side but both fenders protude slightly forward of the hood

:-innocentHere are a couple of thoughts and maybe a question or two..

What forward tilt hood kit are you using?? the CCp kit has an adjustment at the upper fwd pivot /attach point that should allow you to move the hood fwd or back depending on your situation..it's the 'triangle' piece..loosen the 2 bolts on each side where it mounts to the hood braces, ..then carefully slide it where it needs to go. If I remember correctly..you need to slide it in the ;opposite direction than you think.
Mark the original position with a piece of masking tape..loosen the bolts..move the hood on the pivot mechanism just a little, then snug it down. Check fit....NOTE;this same adjustment should allow for some minor "left -to-Right" adjustment for fit across the "top" of the hood/cowl Gap..

Secondly, after a trial fit,..step back several feet (20 ft if you can) ..and look very carefuly at the" hood-side to cowl" gap. This will be a vertical gap on the side of the hood to cowl area. Often overlooked, a gap that gets wider at the bottom indicates either the front of the cab(.. the whole body in the case of a panelVan) is too low, or the front radiator /horseshoe, is too high. In the worst case scenerio, the frame is bent (God forbid, the front of the frame is pushed up). Some "Cab- to-Frame" shimming may be in order to narrow this gap...
As you well know regarding front-clip assy, the hood gets fit first..then everything else is brought up to it and into alignment. No short-cuts here, take the time ..what ever the amount, and it will save you alot of aggravation later..

As far as the high crown in the center of your hood, more fitting info will need to be determined..as one adjustment may effect another. I will offer this insight,..if after getting the gap good 'across' the top of the cowl/hood area,..alot of folks find that "both" ..SIDES..of the hood are uneven with the cab cowl sides..the area is not "flush" with the cowl sides and sticks out sometimes as much as 1/2",(probably a result of stress from sticking hood hinges and rusted thru cab mounts/sagging cabs)...an accepted fix for this..since you have a front-tilt hood and the original hinges are no longer in the way, ..is to cut some1/4-3/8" stock of appropriate length and actually "pull" the side of the hood corner back into the center of the vehicle..I'm sure you have read about them,
Seems to me at this moment with the suspected high crown in the center of the hood ..you are not having that issue,..it would make sense that a high crown in the rear hood brace would pull things in tighter anyway...a combination of hig crown AND hood sides pushed out is a problem though..

More "tinkering" is in your future.. Good Luck!

Most everyone wants to fit the hood last, but it needs to be fitted first right after the radiator support U is squared and leveled. I have posted several times the front sheetmetal alignment procedure, so if you do a search on my user name and terms like front fender alignment, hood alignment, front sheetmetal, etc etc you should find at least one of them.

I've read all your threads regarding the procedures and they have helped me greatly. My gaps are pretty close to being the same both sides, I'm thinking that I may have to nudge the rad support over to the left or front of cab over to the right as the gap is a little tighter on the passenger side. My biggest problem at the moment is that high crown that is just right of center, looking at it, it appears to have a bend to it where the hood support rod attached to the cross brace. I did have to make a repair there because the brace was cracked around the nut that was welded to the brace. The hood sits about 3/8'' high in the center of the cowl and flush at the rounded corners of the cowl. I'm trying to figure how to tweek that cross brace without ending up with a big old oil can . The other problems regarding the fenders having to come up at the back my have to involve some surgery to the repop fenders. I want to get this hood fitting properly first and maybe I could learn to live with the fender issue or not, then I'll be begging for more help,lol.

my hood dosen`t fit properly either but i`m use to fitment issues by now!!! my hood is actually 1/4 inch longer on the rh side, rh side does not contour the back cab pocket correctly and has a big gap , straight edge on the right hand side for the fender gap and its wider and contours further than the left, so i`m going to get as close as possible and get the old cutting wheel out and do some surgery:-X10, i had similar problems with my rh door gap, gap was the same front and top same as lh side but the back of it had over 1/4 inch gap, so got out the old cutting wheel, cut out the complete corner of the jamb, moved it over and added a filler strip, lots of fun these good ol trucks:D

I had to do some of the same..learned a couple of things in the process...:rolleyes:
Two lines to consider on the hood side cut..the fender to hood crown..you want to be sure your fix follows the fender ..AND ..
..front of hood to the cowl..the one you see from outside (what most of us call a gap)

The 1st,fender to hood crown, I think, could use a 'buck' to maintain the crown to match the fender..this fit will be buried if not considered, in otherwords , the crown of the fender may not match the crown of the hood along the length of the gap..the second a straight edge should do..

But don't take my word for it..yours may vary..they're all a little different it seems..check things with a long straight edge..

Sounds like you have already pinpointed to source of the fitment issue, the repair you made to the brace. It is likely the area around the weld shrank from the heat. Can you post a good picture of that repaired area and I will try to suggest a fix, likely some on dolly stretching of the weld will be required. That should not cause any oilcanning.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...237893&width=1

This picture shows how the hood is sitting high in the center at the cowl, the gap however is fairly consistent to 5/16'' all across
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https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...237896&width=1

In this picture you can kind of see where the brace has a bit of a bend to it at the rod on the right side. After I took this pictures I realized that there is about a 1/4'' gap between the brace and hood, I was thinking I could drill out the spot welds on that small 16 gauge angle piece holding the hood to the brace, pulling it down and re-welding, what do you think? The previous repair I did before was right under where the rod attaches to the brace, the metal was cracked around the nut and barely hold on the original rod.
The problem I have with the fenders lining up with the side of the hood I think I have solved also. When I put new front cowl sides I had to remove those fender locators,( for lack of a proper description), I dicovered I welded them in 1/4 lower than they should be, so either I take them off and reweld them in the proper height or jimmy rig that section of the fender.

thats what i would do! there`s also panel adhesive you can use but there can`t be paint on both the brace and the hood where the glue sits in.

I only get a redX instead of the second pic. can you repost it? Where does the hood contact the cowl? Can you remove the space between the hood and the cowl if you press down on the rear of the hood? I'll try to look at my hood tomorrow.

Lot of good posts here, I'm going to get crackin on this one.Time for disassembly again. Gettin out the tape measure and squaring everything up.Thanks Guys.

This was my fix.https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...id=214441&.jpg

https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...237894.520.390
This was the second picture I posted Chuck, and yes if you press down at the center of the hood at the cowl area it will go down but takes a good bit of force to get it down. I forgot to mention that I welded in a 1/4'' stiffening rod along the back edge of the hood as well because there was stress cracks at the bend over, I got that idea from Holmsey. If you still have trouble seeing this picture it's in my gallery intitled mirrors I made.

I see it now. OK it's fairly obvious what the problem is you have already id'd it, how to fix it is not so obvious. The brace has shrunk and warped while being welded. A small spring apart between the skin and the brace is a difficult problem to fix cold due to spingback.
I have not yet gone out to the garage to look at my hood to see exactly the shape of that brace, but I suspect the fix for me would go something like this:
1. cut nearly through the brace at the apex of the warp bend with a thin cutting tool, such as an air powered miniature reciprocating saw (You can pick on up at Harbor Freight for ~ 19.00 on sale. A very useful tool, but buy higher quality fine toothed metal cutting blades than the ones HF sells), a 3" air cutoff tool, or even a hacksaw. Don't cut completely thru or into the skin you just want to make it flexible.
2. You may need to spring the top of the hood at the rear edge since you welded that rod along the back edge. That should be easy enough to do by laying the hood on the shop floor and pressing down on it at the highest point (not at the same point as the cut in the brace. spring it until the hood matches the cowl without adjusting the brace. Down forget to allow for the welting seal thickness.
2. wedge various thicknesses of sheetmetal test pieces into the end of the cut and test the fit, until you are happy with the shape and fit. If a low spot in the top of the hood starts to form you may have to make another cut or two, but since you only welded the brace in a single area, a single cut there is likely to do the trick.
3. Mark where the wedge strip fits to hold the brace in the right shape. Trim the wedge strip so that you can leave it in place while you tack the end of the cut closed and still pull it out afterwards. Note: I am anal enough that I would cut a plywood template of the cowl shape and clamp it to the rear edge of the hood to hold it's shape.
4. tack the end of the cut closed with a SMALL tack. Do NOT quench or force cool the tack. Allow to cool to room temp and again test fit the hood. If you are satisfied, remove the wedge strip and SLOWLY weld the cut closed with tacks, each no more than 3/8" long and air cooling completely between each tack. Be sure to have something else to work on between tacks so you are not tempted to weld it with longer beads or not allow each to completely air cool. I too start getting impatient if I am just sitting there waiting and start rushing the welding, especially when close to completion but that's when the warps and shrinkage happens.

Good luck with it, and let me know how it turns out.
Chuck

I went out and did as you suggested, I cut the cross brace in two places. 2'' to the left and 3'' to the right of the bolt that attached the hood support rod, closed the hood and pressed down at that point with just enough force to open the slices, now the hood is sitting flush at the cowl. I also drilled out the spot welds on that angle piece that joins the hood skin to the brace and shifted the hood over 1/8'' to remove a slight lean the hood had at the verticle section of the cowl and plug welded where I drilled out the spot welds. Tomorrow I will reweld those slots I cut brace taking my time as you suggested so I don't end up back where I started.
I tackle the fender problem as soon as this hood problem is complete. Working on your own is tough and it's nice to be able to come to a site like this to discuss your problems and have them solved. I guess if you can't physically lend a hand you can always share your mind,lol. Thanks again for helping me get out of a jam, but still sticking close to the jar,lol:D