Sunday, December 6, 2015

Hood alignment....

Well when I bought this '72 I knew the hood alignment was terrible, but it came with a nice used hood. I figured one day when I had it painted the new hood could be put on and the alignment issues could be addressed then......Well after reading a few post on the Corvetteforum about rubber hood shims I figured I would give it a try. WOW what a difference....Up the sides it fits quite well now, considering the hood at some point had damage where the brace bolts on....Paint on top is spider webbed bad where the bracket attaches. The back of the hood where it meets the grill in front of the wiper door used to stick up about 3/16" after adding some shims under the grill it lines up much better now.

I went to the hardware store and then the auto part store looking for rubber shims...No luck. When I got back home I noticed that one of the road cones I had collected back in our kart racing days had a nice thick rubber base....I cut it up for the shims I used.

Before these mods I didn't even want to take pics of the hood area with it closed and no way would I have taken it to a show and left the hood down.....But now I just might.

Special thanks to Alan for the idea to shim the back side hole of the hinge to get the front down and to Dub for his excellent explanation of just what it takes to get these damn hoods looking right.....Perfect it's not but much better than before. 

I'll look for some old pics of the alignment before this work begun and post later....For now here is the best I could do with what I have to work with. The drivers side of the hood still sticks up too far but there are no shims to remove and and everything is bonded very well...So there is no moving just the nose up without moving the inner fender and brackets as well.

I'm happy with the fit..Great weekend tinkering with the Vette.





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