41 ford pickup hood help!

hows it going guys?

just joined here on the forums seems like a good source of wealthy knowledge in the rodding addiction!

2 part question. i need some help/info on my 41 ford pickup hood. i am going to link some pictures of where the hinges bolt to the brackets on the hood. on the driver side the bracket is roughly 1/2" further forward than the other side(which is flush with the end of the hood) i am wanting to have a reference picture to compare the location of the brackets so i can make the correction properly.

question 2. i have read that the upper grille support for the 40/41 pickup seem to fit differently if you truck was equipped with a v6 rather than a v8. i am having slight fitment issues with my hood latching to the upper grill support(roughly 1/2" to far forward) didnt know if possibly i had the wrong support or the missalighment was due to the hood hinge brackets being out of wack. any help or pictures or advise would be much appreciated

 

judging by that patch piece on the left undersine, the hood ha had work done to it. it may have the attachment points in the right place, but the skin is wonked up to fit the cab it was on. make some measurements from the front to the mount points to see if they are the same side-to-side. reply to me with your e-mail address and I'll send a copy of front sheetmetal alignment article from CustomRodder magazine

 

Normally on 40's (car and pickup) it is advised to align the hood to the cowl first, then worry about the fenders and grille. It's much easier to move the fenders and grille around than the cowl.

But since your hood has been "modified" once before, you may have to just find a happy medium with the cowl, then work on the front fenders and grille's fit, then come back and modify the back edge of the hood again. I'd say it looks like you may need to add or subtract metal from the back edge of that hood to get a nice gap.

 

The position of the bracket at the back of the hood should be roughly flush with the hood sheetmetal. This is where you will find the fitment problem. You are correct in mentioning the difference between the V 8 and STRAIGHT 6 hood . The difference is the hood latch ***embly that bolts in to the nose of the hood is different. They had to really shoehorn the 6 cylinder engines in there since they were 2 cylinders longer than the V8 or the 4 cyl. In the case of having the wrong hood, you would be off by inches, not the half inch you mention. The correct way to set this up is to set the hood correctly to the cowl as mentioned. Not jut the gap at the top but keep the hood gap even down the sides as well, this sets the height of the hood. Line your fenders and grille up to that.. When everything is set correctly, the front of the hood trim is flush with the grille. Check out some of these trucks...it's rarely correct but that's the way it's supposed to be.

Looks like you're going to have to cut tthe offending bracket loose and re weld it to correct the hood fitting issue.

 

thanks for the info posted good stuff i think with all of this i will be able to fix this issue i currently cut off the brackets and i am going to have to do some hood repair to the sheet metal cuz the hood line at the end of the hood where it fits at the top of the cowl is rusted out so i gotta get some sheet metal and cut and reform that body line should get interesting give me something to do with my new welder!

 

The hood latch bar on the upper grill support is further ahead (roughly 4") for ALL '41 pickups and is not reproduced, the '40 is further back towards the rad and is reproduced. If your only 1/2" out is would be an alignment issue. The latch ***emblies that bolt in the front of the hood are also different between '40 and '41.

Here's what the bracket area(yours looks totally botched) should look like, the bracket actually tucks into the rear edge fold.....