Aligning the front hood

[Automan]

Well on the weekend, i began the long task of mounting the front hood and aligning it.
Definitely not a one person task. lol
So i had the hood stored in my trailer. basically sitting on boxes. I didn't want any pressure on the side. It has gone through two winters and a summer in my trailer.
Who ever cut or trimmed hood at the FFR had a couple of bubblies lolol
So much was cut off in areas. also the bow rounding the corners seems to be too much. hopefully it will settle down.

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So i did a lot of measurements and taped off the area and then cut it. OMG that was absolutely stress full. So i think i cut too much but will know better when i attach it to the mount and fog lamp area.

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[jdavis500]

I had a hard time with this as well. In the end, my hood is not as straight as I would like. The reflections on the sides of the hood won't be perfectly straight. As you can see in my build thread, I also had problems with the front of the hood collapsing a little which lept the rear of the hood from meeting the cowl. Seems like I was always 3/8" away. I discovered that the problem came from the thin fiberglass on the sides of the hood in front of the wheels. I fortified this with more chopmat and I also built brackets to keep this area from flexing/collapsing. this made for a more consistent closure of the hood.

[edwardb]

A little bit late maybe. But for others reading this thread I personally didn't cut anything before mocking up the front hinges and also the fitment of the pontoons to the wheel arches of the hood. That's kind of your sanity check to see if the hood is the right distance back. My number one takeaway after doing mine (which I've repeated several times) is don't do anything in isolation. All four pieces (main body, doors, and hood) interact to some degree so don't lock anything down or if possible cut anything until you're positive everything else is optimal. Showed my completed Coupe at the Detroit Autorama this past weekend. A bunch of people asked me the same question. "What was the hardest part of the build?" My answer every time was fitting the body. I could probably do it a little better and maybe faster the next time. But I'd still have the same recommendations.

[David Williamson]

As Paul said fitting the body is a long job. Get the body in place and get the back bolted down then set the hood roughly in place. Then the slow iterations start.
Body fit and finish is about 505 of the build
David W

[Automan]

Well i got my hood mounted on the weekend.

Really surprised how well the hood struts work. You were right about struts pulling the hood away from the firewall. It did just that.

Not worried yet about the final gaps until i mount the doors and some more aluminum.

Thanks for the replies!!!

Nelson

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