Hood Alignment

[farmerdick]

Need a little direction with the hood alignment. I will be sending along some pictures in a while. The gap on drivers side lower rear by cowl is almost an inch. Passenger side is 1/2" gap. I`am thinking I need to put another 1/8" shim under the front cowl location(there are already (2) 1/8" rubber pads there now and (2) on the passenger side. One of my questions is how to raise the body enough to put another pad on drivers side? Other than the first (2) body bolts what other parts will need to be disconnected to give me about a 1/2" space to play with? I don`t really want to take the body off the frame to do this if possible. Thank you.

Richard

[larrys40]

Richard,

One of my restoration forte's........Hood alignment is/can be a difficult job that must be studied well along with a little pondering before beginning. Sometimes a little tweak is quick.. sometimes it's a 15-20 hour process.

The goal is to get an even gap as you sight across the hood and down to the splash aprons. If it's wide at the bottom of the hood/body area as yours does seem, either the radiator is too high or the body needs to come up. It may take a shim or two on one side and maybe only one on the other. Raising the body up at the front coil bolts will bring the bottom of the hood closer to the cowl thus closing the gap. If you lower the radiator. You simetimes have to get creative on raising the body up to get a pad under. Don't forget the outer body mounts as well on the front. I believe there's a good article in one of the first couple of "How to Restore Your Model A " series.
Also.. sometimes the body need to be shifted left or right or the radiator shifted to get it to line up as well. It's always easier to move the radiator if you just need a little. Other tricks include loosening the shell attaching nuts/screws to see if your front gap can be tweaked that way.

Send us some photos.. maybe we can help further. A good study and assessment should help. Trial and error from there. Of course frame conditions.. etc all play an important part. With a good frame and proper alignment, the hood hooks should be centered on the hood pulls and the gap should be even across the hood and down the sides. No overlap onto radiator shell, cowl, etc.

The sign of good hood alignment says a lot to me about the car.
Larry Shepard

[Tom Wesenberg]

It sounds like you have the common frame sag near the rear motor mounts. I would straighten the frame rather than add shims. Too many shims and the hood hooks won't fit.

[ericr]

Richard can you tell us the year/body style....

[ericr]

my experience was with a '29 roadster. to raise one part of the body enough to add shims, I removed all the body bolts on that particular side and just the nuts on the other side. obviously I did not want anything to bind. I put a piece of 4/4 on top of the floor jack and pushed up under a body mounting block. Up she goes for the small amount you need to add a shim, while being REAL careful with my fingers. I've had the body raised up more times than a barber's chair and though it seems scary at first, so is marriage.

[farmerdick]

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It`s a 1930 roadster.

[ctlikon0712]

I second Tom's suggestion. Here is an article on how to fix frame sag.

[ericr]

Marco's website www.abanyard.com covers this extensively. I get the impression from it that he feels the 30-31s are more align-able than 28-29s due to the cowl structure.

have you tried putting a small magnetic level vertically on each hinge pillar to compare the two sides' positions?

[farmerdick]

I`ve got some pictures coming but had to email tech support on how to attach them to the post. As I said in my post, what ever I do for adjustments is going to be with the body on the frame. I also forgot to mention that I have a 1/8" spacer under each of the radiator mounting bolts. Thanks
Richard