I've been proceeding nicely in fitting my roadster's windshield and body panels/hinges/latches, mainly due to expert help from EdwardB, CraigS and others, but now have a slight problem with the hood hinges. The hood panel fits fine, and I've assembled the hinges exactly per the manual (I think), but there's a HUGE amount of slop/sideplay between the hinge arms and arm support plate, and on the other end between the arms and the hood mount plate. The hinge arms are thus free to slide side to side on the shoulder bolts, even with the locknuts tight. You can actually see the open space between the plates and arms in some of the attached pix.

I think the problem is that the shoulder is too long on the provided shoulder bolts, so despite using the bolt, bronze bushing, "wave" washer, flat washer and locknut as pictured, there's at least 0.100" of side play between the arms and the plates with the nut tightened all the way. The hood closes, but must be pushed down into the opening, and can move fore/aft and side/side about 1/4". It seems like I could fix this by either cutting down the shoulder length on the bolts using a lathe, or using washers to shim the bolt heads back out of the holes in the plates.

What do you all recommend?

OBTW, using EdwardB's order and recommendations for fitting everything went well, and exactly as he described.

Jim K

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