Hood adjustment on 53' Mercury

[Merc Cruzer]

How do you adjust the hood forward, on a 53" Mercury? The drivers side
(pic #1) is tighter than the passenger side (pic #2).

It looks like I would have to put shims behind the hinge box, between the hinges and the body.

[paul2748]

You can't adjust it by adjusting the bolts that hold the hood to the hinges?

How does it fit in front? is it even?

Adjusting the one side will change the side gaps. If the side and the front gaps are good, the only way to get the rear gap right is doing body work (grinding and welding the side with the smaller gap or adding material to the side with the bigger gap to make it look like the tighter side).

[51 MERC-CT]

There are 3 bolts on each side that attach the hood to the cross support.
Generally there should be enough movement after loosening them to move the hood forward.
Without seeing the the total fitment of the hood to its neighboring components it is really difficult to make a positive assessment of what is required.

For example, the picture of the passenger side seems to indicate poor alignment of the fender to the cowl and hood.

[Merc Cruzer]

Originally Posted by 51 MERC-CT

There are 3 bolts on each side that attach the hood to the cross support.
Generally there should be enough movement after loosening them to move the hood forward.
Without seeing the the total fitment of the hood to its neighboring components it is really difficult to make a positive assessment of what is required.

For example, the picture of the passenger side seems to indicate poor alignment of the fender to the cowl and hood.

You mention "3" bolts that attache the hood. Mine has only 2. I would guess, that if I backed off all 4 bolts, that I might get enough "play", to adjust the hood out.

The alignment of the fender is issue that I will correct, by loosing the fender bolts and adjusting accordingly.

[51 MERC-CT]

3 bolts---
Just one part of the puzzle.
Don't be surprised that if after some adjusting, the radiator core support has to be moved to make it perfect.

[Merc Cruzer]

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Actually you have to loosen 5 bolts on each side. Had to loosen both sides then I was able to adjust the hood.

Thanks for the input.

[51 MERC-CT]

Originally Posted by Merc Cruzer

Actually you have to loosen 5 bolts on each side. Had to loosen both sides then I was able to adjust the hood.

Thanks for the input.

That makes sense because it looks like a later factory added support that helped to prevent buckling just forward of the front side bolt.
Earlier hoods did not have that added support.