hood hinge holes

[JJK]

The pre-drilled holed in my hood do not line up with the brackets. On one side I can get 3 of the 4 to line up, but only 2 of the 4 on the other. I could simply drill new holes in the hood for the misaligned holes, but using the 5 holes that line up results in the brackets not square with each other. Specifically, they are angled in towards the back of the car about 1/4" from the ends of each bracket.

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Should the brackets be parallel or is the taper normal? Will this even matter if off a bit since there is a lot of adjustment on the mating hinge? If not supposed to taper, any suggestions as to how far apart these brackets should be?

Last, I read in some older posts to move these brackets 1/4" towards the front of the car to get more adjustment. Mine are already as far forward as they can go, they actually just barely interfere with the radius on the hood, but not enough that it should present a problem. Just cant move them any further forward.

Thanks
JJK

[JJK]

To close this out if someone in the future has this question, there is enough adjustment in the hinges to the frame such that the misaligned brackets on the hood are not a problem. I attached the frame hinge brackets and from underneath the car confirmed that the predrilled holes in the hood could be aligned. Then I riveted them on, after creating some new holes as needed since they all did not line up. After making some adjustments to the frame hood hinges, all lines up fine and the hood opens smoothly.
JJK

[Daddy O]

Thanks much! Just about to this step and appreciate the info.

[cc2Arider]

I too, noticed the "badly" located pre-drilled holes in my hood and asked a similar question last month. I could just tell by "eyeballing" them that they weren't symmetrical....I know that others constantly remind us that these cars are not symmetrical side-to-side, but this seemed egregious.

So, to summarize, you simply drilled the minimum number of new holes in the hoodpart of the hinge mount to properly secure all 8 rivets, then adjusted the hood hinges on the frame side?

Craig C

[JJK]

I too, noticed the "badly" located pre-drilled holes in my hood and asked a similar question last month. I could just tell by "eyeballing" them that they weren't symmetrical....I know that others constantly remind us that these cars are not symmetrical side-to-side, but this seemed egregious.

So, to summarize, you simply drilled the minimum number of new holes in the hoodpart of the hinge mount to properly secure all 8 rivets, then adjusted the hood hinges on the frame side?

Craig C

Correct, there was enough adjustment with the frame mounts that everything was able to line up fine. I started with only two rivets per bracket to ensure my 'under the car eyeball aligning' was sufficient. Once things were adjusted with the two rivets per bracket I created/enlarged the other holes to get 4 rivets per bracket. Also, one set of holes for the gas strut support brackets was off by about 1/2in, leaving the ball end of the arm too far to the outside. I created three new holes for that bracket as well.