29 Tudor hood alignment
 

I think that I have read about every post that refers to the alignment of the hood on the 29 Tudor. And I am in the process of reading them again. I started to get into that purcedure today and I think that I may have more problems then I thought.

It looks to me like I will need to tip the cowl up a bit--but also it seems that the radiator needs to be moved to the right some what. (and I don't think that is possible unless I elongate the bottom radiator mounting holes)

I have attached some photos for you guys to look at and see what you think. If you need more photos let me know.

The body is all bolted down at this point. I had a slight problem with the pass door (looks like at some point the hinges were strung. I was able to tweak things somewhat and the door closes okay now.)

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Looks like a couple of things going on. You'll have to draw the top of the rad back towards the cowl. So shorten the nuts on the support rods. That will pull the hood back and get rid of the overlap at the bottom corners to the rad shroud. Then You'll have to shim the cowl up to straighten up the vertical line. Then you can work your way back to the door fit and the 1/4's. The frame is Straight? JP

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Frame straight? I have no idea. I didn't even think of checking that when I had the body off. Hindsight is always better than foresight, as they say. This car was really in great condition so I didn't even think of a problem with the frame. I know that I should have checked it but it's too late now.

I was looking at the hood again this morning (sometimes things can change after a good night's sleep). The left side seems to line up pretty well. The right side is a different story. I'll play with it a little more in the next few days and try your suggestions and let you know how it goes. Thanks for your reply.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

So I have made a few adjustments and labeled the gap measurements. I have come up with two possible ways to correct the hood alignment. I am NOT happy about either one!

As you can see the adjusting rods that attach to the top of the radiator are at their limits. The right side is loosen up as far as it can go. The left side is tightened up about as far as it can go. I shimmed the left side of the radiator up about 1/4" to try and move the hinge closer to being perpendicular to the cowl (I remember when I pulled the radiator that there was a thick-maybe 1/4" piece of rubber under the left side rad mount). See pix.

#1--and I don't know if this is possible at this point--but here it goes. I need to reposition the body. I need to shift the cowl to the left and shift the rear of the body to the right. All of the body bolts have been installed and tightened down.

Can the body be shifted as I mentioned above--all the bolts seemed to fit tightly into the frame so I wonder if any movement is possible?

#2--When I look at the vehicle right now the only other option that I can think of is to slide to radiator over to the left--this would involve modifying the two holes in the frame where the radiator is attached to the frame. (then I wonder how many other things will be affected?)


Is there any way to check for a bent frame at this point or can that only be done with the body removed?

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Is the radiator and/or the shell repro?



Bob

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

I had puzzling fitment issues until I changed radiator shells----the '29 design is kinda goofy anyway and if yours is out of square, I doubt you can get a normal hood fit despite all kinds of fiddling with other adjustments.


but if one side of the hood has a good hood fit and the other side bad, and if you improve the bad side but it then distorts the other side, I would suspect a sagging frame.


I would be surprised if there is significant slop among the body bolts to achieve significant adjustment of your situation.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

I was told that the radiator shell in original but has been chrome plated. I got that info after I answered some questions about the shell from someone at Bert's.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

How would I tell if the shell is out of square? One thing that I did notice about the shell is that there is a gap between the radiator and the shell on the left side only--the right side looks fine --see pix.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

I did not explain the reason for the blue paper on the top of the hood. I cut the paper pieces so that both ends were perpendicular to the sides of the paper sheets. Then I lined up the ends of the sheets to the top part of the cowl--one sheet for the left and one for the right. I did that because I wanted to see if the hood hinge was perpendicular to the cowl. As you can see it is not.

What are the negative effects of moving the radiator to the right to get a better fit?

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Some things to consider. You say you had the body off of the frame once before. Even though you had a shim under one radiator side, how did the hood fit before? What was the condition of the rubber pads under the front cowl mounts? I would really consider those questions before arbitrarily making new holes to relocate the radiator.

Someone told me this works, It is described as 30/31 but a shim might help. You could loosen the front cowl bolts and play with it. Playing with it sure beats modifications.

https://www.snydersantiqueauto.com/cowl-shim-set

I am eager to hear how it goes. I currently have my body up and off the frame as I am putting down new frame welting. I will be re-aligning soon enough too. Mine is also a '29 Tudor.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

I am embarrassed to say this, but I didn't thoroughly check out the car before I took it apart. And believe me I KNOW that it should be checked first. Brain fart! The car was in such good condition that it never dawned on me to check the frame etc. And to be honest I never intended to take the body off of the frame. At first I was hoping to do a quick paint job and send it down the road. One thing lead to another and before I knew it the body was at the sand blaster and things got crazy after that.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

-and I had the exact same problem until I changed radiator shells. If the shell is slightly malformed it results in one side of the hood resting on it differently than the other side. And the mis-alignment carries back towards the firewall.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

My 29ccpu hood on the passenger side at the cowl also has a large gap,bent frame,just a driver.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

a prior member had asked: is the radiator itself original?


PS: me personally, I never had much success in correcting alignment issues through those radiator stay rods....my problems were elsewhere.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Fred if I were you I would disconnect the stay rods, slightly loosen the radiator to frame bolts, and remove the top radiator hose (which is preventing you from shifting things around much) and just let the hood and radiator/shell be able to "float" around and see what kind of conclusions you can reach by fiddling around.....nothing is going to collapse into rubble if you are careful.


my similar experiences would say the problem lies with the shell and/or the radiator. I had had the frame checked before restoration.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

it looks like the frame is swaging at the left cowl bolt and the front of the frame is over to the right. it would be nice if you could find someone with some frame gauges. that will tell if that is the problem. I have ran into that more then once. you can tip the radiator to the right a little, but it will make the left lower hood gap worse.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Just a guess, but would you happen to have too much rubber (or other insulator) under the rad supports at the front. It looks like the rad might be sitting a little too high in comparison to the cowl level so that would tend to tilt the hood upwards and cause a gap at the cowl.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

What I have done in the past to correct this is to shift the back of the body to one side or the other. A small amount of movement in the rear will result in a large change to the front of the cowl section. You should be able to loosen all of the body bolts and shift the rear of the body over.

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

Who sells a repo radiator shell that works? The next four days are hard for me to get any work done on the car, but I did take a good look at the radiator shell and found that the shell does not fit over the radiator as well as it should. Standing in front of the car (trying to line my eye down the middle of the radiator) I see a gap on the left side between the radiator and the shell (like the shell is not centered on the radiator) Also, I noticed that the right side (passenger side) of the shell is closer to the radiator than the left side--like the tabs for the shell mounts are out of alignment.

Thanks for your suggestion of loosening the radiator mounting bolts etc and letting it "float" while moving the rad to the best position. I was thinking of doing that before I did anything drastic.

When I look at the overall hood alignment I am wondering if the frame was bent as result of an accident where it was hit on the right front of the car from the right side--causing the frame to bend to the left side. But if that was the case wouldn't the frame show some signs of damage?

I plan on putting the car up on my lift this weekend--is there any place that I should be looking for damage? Is there any way to measure the frame to see if it is bent?

Re: 29 Tudor hood alignment
 

I think your getting ahead of yourself. It would be a good idea to check the frame for level first. You can do this with a 2' straight edge from underneath. A bit of a challenge on the drivers side. Lay the edge along the top frame rail on each side and see where you are. The problem is usually in the rear engine mount area. It can be sagged in this area. The do a diagonal check on the frame to see if it's square. It will take two of you to do this.
If everything is square and level. then check the rad shroud for shape. Take a cardboard pattern off of the rear edge on one side and then flip it too the other side the shape should be equal. Cars are like houses, everything has to be square and level. I have another way of checking the frame with strings and plum bobs. But that's a different story. a little more involved. Let me know if you want to know how. JP