Hood Gaps

Kevin Curry

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Hi everybody - I wanted to get people's opinion on body panel fit in Gen 1 cars. I thought at first this hood was ajar but it is closed and you can see the fit or misfit in the head-on photo. What would cause this large of a gap by the right headlamp? Forced shut at one time? The car only has 7300 miles on it and doesn't look abused, in fact it's gorgeous. Any ideas? Thanks in advance, safe motoring all!

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Dan Cragin

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The gaps were all over the place from the factory. You can improve on that, but it requires a lot of adjustments and removing the front bump cover to align the
radiator support.
 

ViperRed

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I've had so many friends suffer from this, the bottom line?
The fibreglass hood deforms over time.
 

Garry Fuller

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Mine is about the same. I've done some adjustments to no avail. I've stopped myself from getting out the old fiberglass tools and hacking away. I guess with old age comes Wisdom after all.
 

Walter Clark

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I had similar issues with my '94. I am not sure there is a real simple cure as the cause can be a combination of things including poor alignment of the bumper supports, adjustment of the from hood stops and latches, deformed or damaged front radiator support and maybe other things.

In my case the main culprit was the front radiator support having been damaged in what looks like it was a head-in parking curb incident many years back. After repairing the radiator support it was still "off". I ended up doing a combination of adjusting the bumper support mount up, shimming the radiator support right seat to the chassis tubes to lift the headlight and front facia attachments along the right wheel well lip, shimming the headlight to even the gaps and adjusting the right front hood stop bumper and latch. The result was so much better on that side that I did some tweeking of the headlight with shims and hood stop on the drivers side to match. Then I abandoned the plastic retainers along the top of the facia that go into the fiber glass bumper and installed riv-nuts and bolts so I could set and maintain the gap between the facia and hood.

From your pictures, it sort of looks like the right front corner of the hood is high. Not only do you have a large gap above the headlight and to the side of the front facia, it looks like the gap of the hood to the rocker is noticably larger toward the front. What is the height to the ground of the front outside edges of the hood. Is it higher on the right side?

Assuming that is the case...

I think I would begin by adjusting the right front hood stop and latch down to get the hood where you want it, then try to adjust the right front bumper mount down to realign the facia height to the new hood height. The hood height is pretty easy. Getting to the bumper mounts requires removing the facia and fiberglass bumper. Its best to measure how much you want to lower the facia before taking anything off and them moving the bumper mount that amount. The bumper mounts are slotted to allow some adjustment and if you are lucky, it wasnt all taken up at the factory compensating for any lack of perfection when the chassis was built.
 

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