Face Book page Deuces and Forty's had a couple 40 Ford standard coupes today with a brief discussion of hood fit. My 40 standard hood has perfect fit on the left side but the right rear corner is up very slightly. The hood cannot go down any more as it's on the rubber bumpers. This is a low mile CA car with all original hinges and latches. I see a lot of 40's like this. Mine is so close but just not quite right. Is there a secret to get it right? I've read about slotting the holes etc. but when there's no place to go I'm perplexed. What have you expert 40 guys done to attain that elusive perfect fit?
https://www.fordbarn.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160773&highlight=hanging+1940+ford+front+end Scroll down to the second post and check out Kube's way of doing it. Basically, fit the hood to the cowl and then fit the rest of the parts to it. I followed these instructions when I put the front end back on my '40, took a couple of days, but it turned out well. However I had to do some grinding on several hood bumpers to get things right.
I've sent pictures to olscrounger/Tim Bedford as he helped me thru the renovation of this coupe. This car has almost perfect paint and was built by another CA 40 builder Gary Monnich in Sanoma. The lines are so close that Tim suggested moving short piece of cowl trim around so it looked better aligned. Scared to do much and open a can of worms. Maybe it would be better to live with it?
On my 41 PU I had to raise the back of the cab and lower the front fenders to get a good cowl fitment.
On my tudor I did slot hood hinge holes to adjust. But I also piecut the U brace inside the hood to remove some of the “spread” and pulled the lower rear corners in.
I've learned to just push in on the high side hood side at the fender and the hood drops right down perfect.
After having done several, I have found that it can be a combination of several things, the most important being the hinges at the cowl and the spring loaded support arms. On my '39 Deluxe I had to use NOS hinges and ****-canned the spring/support arms. I used a telescoping hood support that was sold by a guy in Louisiana (out of business now) this allows the back of the hood to drop down on the cowl lacing and not be held up by the springs. The rubber bumpers usually need to be trimmed some to allow the hood to settle into the opening created by the front fenders. I have also found the inner fender panels (having little or no adjustment) can be the cause of the hood not fitting as it should. These are just some of the things to consider--there are others, I think I could write a book!
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