Rusty Bowtie
General Category => General Discussion - Intros => Topic started by: munch on December 07, 2013, 04:03:52 PM
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I am trying to put the hood on my 1930 Coach and it is kicking my butt. Every adjustment I make throws something else out. Does anyone have a trick they can share?
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Munch
What area is giving you problems. I had to shim the body and the radiator support to get the right gaps. Get the cowl to hood line where it should be and then work forward from there by moving the radiator fore and aft and shim up or down to get all the gaps right. If you don't have enough movement in the radiator to get the lines right you'll have to re-shim to body to change the cowl angle and start over. If you do have to shim the body to change the cowl angle make sure you do all the body mounting points or you door gap will go out. It's a lot of fun.
Moose
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Thanks Moose, I'll give it a shot...
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Like Moose said....I found out that those car body panels weren't made with precision. You probably need to adjust the body to frame mounts to basically twist the entire body etc. I finally made my hood about 3/8" longer on the passenger side.
I raked the body and had to extend my hood 5" so I could lower the radiator in front of the cross member.
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That looks awesome EDNY, I don't think I have those skills but I will figure something out.
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Munch,
What I did to get mine in the ball park was put the hood on the car and place some masking tape just under the hinge on the hood side and the grill then repeat it just above the bottom of the hood side and grill. Then I pulled the hood off and measured those areas on the hood. That allowed me to adjust the grill to the dimensions I measured on the hood. All this was done with the fenders off to make it easier. Then I can tweek it during final assembly.
Tom
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Thanks guys, I got it close. A little more fine tuning.
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Guys,
This is where I am. Looks like the cowl needs to be lowered or the radiator raised. I don't know how high the radiator should be, now it sits on top of the Kugel front end with maybe 1 to 1 1/2 spacers.
As you see when I gap it on top to line up, the sides kick back from a gap at top to none and even overlapping the cowl at the bottom.
The front body mounts do sit on 3/4 rubber spacers for cushion, maybe that is where I started to go wrong. Very frustrating...
(Munch I resized the pictures -EDNY)
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Sorry about the pictures, I will try to resize them.
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Munch In your last picture I see that your rack is behind your cross member, Is there a reason that you put it in the back instead of the front of it? The reason I'm asking I'm getting ready to put my cross member in and my rack will be in the front.
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Not sure if it helps but my rack is behind my cross member on my 33. Mine is a TCI Front End.
Tom
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Its a Kugel front end and that is the way I got it
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The original body mounting pads are about 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick. That could definitely make a difference. I also used a Kugel rear steer IFS. I was able to notch the existing front cross member and mate the Kugel assembly into it which made the assembly extremely strong. Here is a picture of the assembly and as you can see the original radiator support uses a 1/2 rubber pad. Maybe you can get some idea of the the spacing of the support by seeing the distance between the top of the frame and the ends of the support where the fender brackets mount
Moose
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I had to notch mine too for the original radiator mounting bracket.
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I purchased a JW Rod Garage front cross member it shows the rack in the front does anybody see a problem that I don't see by doing this.
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If you don't have a problem clearing your radiator the only other issue is the front splash apron. I know I have to trim mine on my 33 to clear the radiator. I might have to trim it more for the rack if it was in front.
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Sorry about the pictures, I will try to resize them.
Just resized them for you
Ed
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Munch
Looking at your alignment can I suggest that you try lifting the back of the car instead of concentrating on the front? Maybe lift (lightly) the frame at the rear chassis area near the bumper mounts and monitor gap changes. Might be that the frame is bowed up in the middle from stress or someone lifting the car in the middle with a jack.
Sounds crazy, but instead of trying to adjust the hood/radiator to the body..try adjusting the body to the hood radiator.
Ed
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ED,
I was thinking about that as if I lowered the front the bottom of the cowl would bottom out. Make sense?
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munch
In looking at your pictures it would appear that the difference in angle of the trim line on the body and the hood is somewhere around 10 degrees. I'm sure that there is some distortion of the angle in the picture but if its visible to the eye it's pretty large. If you project that line to the rear of the car then as you can see you would have to raise the body a mile(pictures are exaggerated). I think you are going to have to raise the radiator and change the angle of the body to make up as much of the difference as possible and even then you might have to do what ED did and modify the hood. To be honest I've never seen the angles to be so far off.
Moose
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ED,
I was thinking about that as if I lowered the front the bottom of the cowl would bottom out. Make sense?
Not sure what you mean...but it only takes a few minutes to put a floor jack under the car (way back) in a couple of different places and see if you can get the frame and/or body to shift into alignment. Keep in mind that those cars were framed with wood and nails and the frames weren't boxed. Overlap some masking tape with lines at the gaps to see if they move. You never know...the car may have been in an accident many years ago.
Kinda like when you have a vibration in the front of your car it's probably the rear universal and not the front one causing it.
Ed
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My radiator mounts directly on top of the Kugel front end and I can raise it to straighten the body line, but then their will be a wide gap between the bottom of the hood side and the surface of the fender. I guess I could try and space between the fender and frame, but it seems like I'm just screwing everything up.
The car sits on the stock frame, but all wood in the body has been replaced with steel. The front and center body mounts are fabricated and not original, so everything is different. I put rubber spacers between the body mounts to cushion the ride and also to keep the bottom of the cowl from bottoming out.
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munch
I'm not sure if you year had the same setup but the 32 has a support that mounts on top of the front cross member that mounts both the radiator and fender brackets. The fenders only attach to the frame at the rear and the front of the fenders attach to the brackets that are bolted to the radiator support bracket. When you adjust the height of the radiator you put shims between the frame and the support bracket which lifts both the radiator and the fenders. There is a gap at the front between the fenders and the frame and the stock fenders had a sheet metal filler that was riveted to the fender to hide the gap when viewed from the underside of the fender.
Moose
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I like that setup Moose, but mine has the fender braces that attach to the frame. Raising the radiator only increases the gap. I'm not giving up though. I plan to try a number of these suggestions.
When I got the car, it was bolted to the frame with no shock absorption what so ever, but body lines were better. My attempts aided the ride, but threw things out. Maybe time to stat over?
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This is interesting. I'd try jacking up the back of the frame to see if it helps but I would also take the body mounts loose and see if shims would help. It may be that when replacing the wood some errors were made.
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Got that sucker, thanks guys. Maybe a little more adjusting when I roll it out a stand back to look, but I know what it takes now.