Me and my dad are working on his 56 chevy 210 g***er and we just painted it and right now im in the process of doing the body work to the front sheetmetal. The whole front end was bolted all together and tilted at the bumper, and the right fender was cut 3/4's of the way down. When ever you opened or closed the hood, the fender chipped the paint on the cowl, or s****ed on the side of the door. Anyone have any suggestions on how to make it a nicer fit without getting into chip foose style hydraulic openers?
I think the "secret" is to make it all move forward first, and then up and over. So the hinge really is a two-way action.
I owuld say look at the hinges on a fibergl*** nose set up like A&A gl*** to get a bettr idea on how to make it work. If I recall correctly they are sort of a C shape that moves the nose forward as it tilts.
In my limited experience the trick is to keep the pivot point at or below the lowest part of the moveable fender (draw an imaginery horizontal line) in your case that will be the "cut" line of the fender. The verticle fender "gap" will then always get bigger as the fender moves through it's path. If that doesn't make sense - sketch it out you will see exactly what I mean. I put a steel tilt on my Rambler this way and it works near perfect. The trick hinges and sliding devices are needed when you simply cannot get your pivot point below that low spot on your fender.
yep.. like he said i was working on a simular project (front engine rear drive GIA) and i was having trouble with the brackets. Then i was at jefferson swap meet and saw a datona coupe kit car that had a tilt front end. talked to the fab guy and thats what he told me. pivot point lower than the lowest part of the fender/hood and it moves forward and away from the body... have fun tk
I am getting ready to make the front of a 49 plymouth tilt, and we do not want to have to cut the fenders, and we may not be able to get the pivot point down. Hemirambler, do you have close up shots of the hinge? or does anybody else have shots of hinge setups?
i also say a willys that had a slide set up on the tilt basically (2) 3/4 rods with L brackets bolted to the ends and a bigger piece of round stock sliding back and forth on the rods un-hook the the hold downs slide the clip forward a bit then tilt forward pretty slick too tk
I'm planning on using sliders for the tilt front on my '55. Most likely, we will use drawer sliders. Either Snap On drawer sliders or old computer drawer sliders is the plan. The idea is to slide the whole front end forward about a foot, and then tilt it from there.
Has anyone ever tried using the door hinge off a Lexus SC? (Only one huge one per side) They are VERY heavy duty, cantilevered, and go the whole length of the pillar. I have used them for 49-53 Chevy pickup front end tilts with excellent customer feedback. Only thing to remember is that they are side specific, so the whole front end does move somewhat to one side when going up. I always leave the drivers side as the big side open. It's goes over enough that is looks extremely trick at shows without all the engineering (12-14 inches difference when open). They weigh about 20 lbs. I'll try to post a picture of one later. Most any foreign bone yard would have them, and they've been tagging me for 35.00 a pop for them. New they're 200+. Just a thought. Bruce
I wonder if you could move the tilt hinge forward about 2" or so, and use something like a hard spring shackle to gain your additional clearance, or if that would be enough? You'd have to lift the front clip 'over' the pivot of the shackle, but the downward motion once you went over the vertical center in the rotation should allow it to slide backwards into the closed location. If the shackle was a 2" long version, and was layed out flat when closed back, then it would give you a total of 4" movement forward when completely open. Might have to support the rear where the hood and fenders meet the cowl to keep it from dragging at all, but I think that would probably have to be a trial and error type thing. I also remember seeing a 24v lift jack for a motorhome leveling system used before on a 55 Ford truck front clip. Even operating at 12v, the thing was super strong, lifted slowly - about 30 seconds, and took only one to lift an entire 'gl*** front clip. Might need 2 for steel, but it's also an option. Check out RV salvage yards and see if you can find them as well.
on the 55 i am doing now (g***er style) with tilt gl*** front we built a tubular unit that goes into each frame horn and slides out till a stop catches it and then tilt it up and to put it down we simply close it and push back and it goes right on, we also have guides built at cowl and on sides of cowl to guide it on , works great. and it only has to slide out about 6 inches before tilting to clear everything
GreggAz, Here's an old in process shot of the hinges I made. I bascially incorporated the bumper mount directly into the hinge bracket. Being on the bottom of the frame helped with keeping the geometry right.
Gofaster here has a '56 with tilt steel front end. E-mail him. One other thing that always works nice on tilt-nose '56: There's a stock piece of stainless for the front fender that's used to break up a 2-tone paint job. It goes from the front fender spear down to the wheel opening. You can make the cut there, and hide that seam. Nice clean installation. -Brad
Here is how I did my steel tilt front end back in the early 80's. See that silver piece on the side of the cowl? It's a piece of aluminum that is a guide for a small wheel that is out of sight behind the lower fender corner. When the front end is lowered ( I wanted it to be a one man operation ) the wheels roll on the aluminum and spread the fenders just enough to clear the doors. The wheels roll down the side of the cowl and when the front end is completely lowered the fenders come in and everything lines up. I don't like it when fenders are cut up to make a front end tilt.
I love you Kiwi Kev. That is so brilliantly simple. Lux and I will be discussing this tomorrow morning while working on the '55. I'd venture to bet that we go this way instead of the slides.
Kiwi Kev, Man THAT is nice!!! The tilt on my '56 is what I call very "traditional 60's" - meaning that it has the telltale huge fender gap and is cut and frankly a pain to use. I don't mind the heals cut although it does look much better with them NOT cut as on yours. How big a (fender) gap did you have ?? I'd very much like to redo the tilt on my '56 -not that I don't have enough projects already!!! Speaking of tilt front ends - on my '64 I left the hood functional. I gotta say in hindsight I am VERY glad I did that. With it closed you can't really tell the front end tilts as the body line makes my cut fender nearly invisible. There are also no external fasteners to give ti away either - I kinda like that. But the real nice part is when I just want to check the oil and it's parked in the garage I don't have to leave 3 feet of space in front of it to work on little stuff. Might not sound like a big deal - but it's comes in handy a bunch of times. I highly reccomend it. I'm tempted to change my '56 over, but I'll have to struggle with my laziness first. Kiwi Kev - do you have any shots of the fender gap and more importantly a front or 3/4 front shot. I'd love to see more pics of that car.
My fender gap was as stock. I set it up with some pins that located the top of the fenders so I could run with or without the hood. If you use a fibergl*** front end you need to make some kind of spacers to keep the fenders flush with the doors.
Here are a couple of pics showing the hinge mechanism. The cross bar was in the same location as the stock radiator support. I didn't run a front bumper so I hinged it off the front of the slightly shortened frame rail with support post coming past the hinge bolt about 1 1/2" and at an angle to act as a stop so there were no chains or cables needed.
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