I am having a hell of a time getting the deck lid on my 47 Ford business coupe to fit. These were never a great fit and finish from the factory, but I want my gaps to be as tight as possible. First off, I am running stock hinges, but when I got the car, the original spring type deck lid supports were gone. I installed a gas shock kit from Bob Drake. I put in a bear claw type latch when I shaved the deck lid. Its not exactly a bear claw, its made for a trunk lid, and operates the same way. The whole setup worked great, but now I am getting the car for its final finnish, and I want everything to look as perfect as I can get it. When I remove the gas shock supports, the deck lid drops into place, with a very minimal gap. There are some edges near the bottom that will need a little hammer and dolly work to bring them in tight, and the worst area is the bottom corners, but since I am rounding them off, that will help solve that. I know that the gas shocks are putting upward pressure on the deck lid at all times, making the gap bigger. I cannot get the latch to work any tighter, and still have it engage (hold the trunk closed). There is about 1/4" play, which equals 1/4" extra gap. Im very tempted at this point to just ditch the gas shocks all together (or any pressure tye support system), and put the latch release cable under the trunk floor (as apposed to under the p***enger seat where it is now), so I can release the latch, and pull the trunk up manualy (the trunk is quite heavy though), and put a support rod in the trunk. I am more concerned about fit and finnish than practicality right now. Any other possibilities? Suggestions?
I am having the same problem on my 55 lincoln.I dont know if the springs are pushing the lis up or what.When you take the springs off it closes but has a gap on the top.let me know what yoy find out.
I had the very same problem with my 37, finally kept relocating the shock until it was at an angle to where it actually went over center to help pull the lid closed, I had two small shocks mounted in the center at the top and it worked very well. I had a engineer at work run the formula that is available to locate mounting point provided by the shock manufacture, it just didn't work, I think it was due to the m*** of required info requested by the program, in other words I wasn't pluging in the right weight of the lid degrees of rotation all that kind of BS, so I kept moving it around on the mounting point untill suscess. I'm sorry I don't have any pics, and the ****z is the guy that bought the car got ***-ended Hard in IL oh well a lot of work gone...good luck
When I asked about pictures, I wanted to visualize how all of this worked together, with the hinges and the gas shock kit. Does the lid fit right without the gas shock installed?
Hey, From the sound of things the gas shock mount needs a few degrees of tilt down. The shock sounds as if it's at too much of a right angle to the opening. Perhaps, as the shock wares out, or the weather gets colder, this problem will change. S****ey devils C.C.
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