Need some help/direction

[Kalstar]

Just came back from the body shop. He is struggling with the nose. When it's latched the rear edges hang out about a half inch on each side. If one pulls up on the center of the hood it will "some what" line up. When it is resting on the aluminum brace with the rubber on it, it hangs over . The center needs to be pulled up about 3" to look "ok". Also the drivers side tire hands out about an inch but the passenger tire is right on the money. Seems like the nose is on crocked but we are adjusted to the extreme (as far as the brackets will allow).

Thoughts??

[kabacj]

Just came back from the body shop. He is struggling with the nose. When it's latched the rear edges hang out about a half inch on each side. If one pulls up on the center of the hood it will "some what" line up. When it is resting on the aluminum brace with the rubber on it, it hangs over . The center needs to be pulled up about 3" to look "ok". Also the drivers side tire hands out about an inch but the passenger tire is right on the money. Seems like the nose is on crocked but we are adjusted to the extreme (as far as the brackets will allow).

Thoughts??

I have the same thing. I moved the gas strut lower mounting point from near the control arm mounting point to the rear of the front compartment. .and that slightly changes the shape of the hood when its closed as well as lowers the mechanical advantage of the strut as the hood goes down. The situation is slightly better but still needs more fiberglass then filler work.

John

[Fraser D]

You may want to look at how your body is mounted. I ended up with the passenger side pulled away from the "A" pillar frame about 1/2" in the door opening.
This gave the body better symmetry around the front windscreen to frame as well.
Just something to look at.

[65 Cobra Dude]

Check the rubber bulb seal on the 2 longer aluminum pieces going from the radiator to the wiindshield. I had a similar problem and ended up trimming the aluminum so the bulb seal did not push up on the hood frame. The car I am working on now treated it differently - they stopped the bulb seal about a foot from the firewall.

Henry

[Kalstar]

The body guy wants to heat up the hood and bend it into shape. This is scaring the bee-jesus out of me.

Henry, the hood is not even touching the aluminum/bulb seal in the center where the buldge in the hood is.

Dave, we will play with that A pillar to see what we got.

John, That is the first thing we tried, helped a little but not as much as we had hoped.

Keep the advise coming, there must be a solution.

[kabacj]

The body guy wants to heat up the hood and bend it into shape. This is scaring the bee-jesus out of me.

Henry, the hood is not even touching the aluminum/bulb seal in the center where the buldge in the hood is.

Dave, we will play with that A pillar to see what we got.

John, That is the first thing we tried, helped a little but not as much as we had hoped.

Keep the advise coming, there must be a solution.

Jim

The next thing I was going to try is to sand down the inside of the hood to make it half as thick. Then clamp it into shape from the outside. So clamp both sides using some of my wood working bar clamps. Make it just a bit narrower then required Then put a layer of epoxy and fiberglass cloth or two. The new shape would be narrower. After everything cures the hood would stay narrower and slightly more crowned....in theory. I don't know if heat is going to fix it. Even if it did, reheating in the sun would likely undo the shape.

Last resort I was thinking putting some aluminum ribs in hood again with epoxy and cloth to keep it flexed to the right shape.

I'm determined to reshape it but not pile on the filler.

John

[crash]

The resin/epoxy will almost always shrink with time as it cures. Thus, if I am understanding what you are saying, your cure would likely lead to the problem being even worse. Heating the area essentially takes the resin into a higher heat level of cure. So this could work just fine, so long as there is a heat cure margin that is still available within the resin. Once this is done, you would have to elevate the temps even higher for the part to want to reshape itself. Not likely from sunlight heat. Again, at some point, there will be no margin for heating and reshaping as the resin will be cured to a temperature where it will literally combust as opposed to softening and recuring. That temp is pretty darn high, and the temperature reshape/recure thing will have to be done at pretty high heat levels as is, so be careful. Without a very large oven and a good form, you may just create more headaches for yourself down the road with a spot heat cured part. Heat reshaping may be your answer, but unless the guy has some experience doing it, I don't think I would attempt it...at least not with a part that wasn't "expenpable".

[Presto51]

This is assuming you have the main body section mounted on the chassis correctly.

First thing I believe is to find the true center line of the car body, I’m lean towards the whole car not just the front end. This might be a bit of over kill, but I just want to be thorough.

How to do this?

1. Find out what the size is of the center cap on the wheels, and get a dowel rod the same size, or just a tad smaller to fit just inside of the center cap area, and attach it to a type of stand, that just touches the outside of the quarter panels, on each side and is high enough to clear the tops of the quarter panels. On the top part of these stands, use either, eye screw, nail, or just a plain screw, so we can run a string line with a small level across the width of the car, measure the distance between the two, and using a plum bob, or a square to plum spot, and mark this location on the back of the body

2. Place the front end/hood onto the car as best as you can, and make the same kind of set up, measurement and marking that was done on the back end.

3. Place two adjustable stands, one in front of the car, the other in the back end of the car, and run a string line with a level attached (Two IV poles that adjust up and down, should work pretty good) and where the two strings intersect, square the intersecting angles, that should give true center line of the body. Drop plum line at the intersection and mark that spot on the front end. You should have a nice cross marking

4. After finding the center line, place a center line mark at the bottom front edge, and on the floor of the shop, one center line mark on the back end of the hood and one on the cowl of the body just underneath the windshield area, so if the whole front end is moved you can re-center it again.

After you do all of that, raise the front till it clears the front hinge mount, check to see if the hinges are close enough for attachment, determine if it’s high enough to clear the ground when raised into upright position, and adjust the back end for wiper motor/arm clearance, and while you're at it check and look for level.

If with luck you can locate, drill, fasten the front hinges, set the latches on the back end.

After all of that check the wheel arch openings, line and gaps, which will need adjusting which is another story all together.

If you don’t like the cheap DIY method, I guess you can get the same results from a laser level.

[Kalstar]

Will be spending the evening on this, I will let you know how it turns out.

Thx guys!

[crash]

So you guys are gonna try and square everything?...on a GTM?...Good luck!

Only half way kidding!

[Presto51]

So you guys are gonna try and square everything?...on a GTM?...Good luck!

Only half way kidding!

Hey Crash you of all people know that nothing is impossible, just some things are harder to do than others. (Think of your GTM-R :rolleyes:)

But your right nothing on the GTM is square, but you can achive a good compromise where you can cut down on the amount of body work to make it look good.

At least I would try my method before I get anywhere close to heating it up

[crash]

No, you are right.

The only way to really go about this is to measure and make things square, if you want it to look right. Measurements off of centerline are how this should be done.

I have said this before, and I will say it again...TAKE YOUR TIME in mounting the body. Little things can make big differences when it comes to body panel alignment. Everything has to work together. IMHO, after doing many other vehicles, you should only temperarily mount the body until ALL pieces are in place and ALL pieces have been adjusted to make the body fit properly. It's quite a lot of work if you want to do it right. Just like with anything really. :)

[Kalstar]

So heres what we did (after we confirmend the body was as square as it could be) We trimed down the aluminum wheel well aluminum....the one with the bulb seal on top that runs from the radiator to the firewall. This brought the hood down about an inch. Next was we cut the drives side body (lower b-pillar) and added about an 1/2 inch of material to increase the body width, we also had to pad the body to the roof bar almost an inch. After we adjusted the nose to the drives side things lined up A-OK. How could the body be off this much? Looks good now though!

Thx for the advise guys!