Blaze of Glory

not too long ago i thought i was just going to plauge you guys with another hood alignment question, i wish it were that simple.
92 Firebird...just so yah know
here is the story, a few months ago i rear-ended and SUV, it wasn't high speed or anything but it was enough to but i was enough to slightly push to top of the front bumper down underneath the tip of the hood.
Well i found another front bumper at a junk yard and i got 2 front fenders as well since they were kinda messed up from previous incidents... However the damage to the fenders was mearly a few dents that i didn't feel like fixing...
anyways, i replace the parts and now there was a gap between the hood and the front bumper. The hood had taken some minor damage, so i thought maybe it was enought to tweak the hood...
so i did what anyone in my position would do, i bought a fiberglass Ram Air II hood. i got it and when i put it on the gaps was even worse, wierd thing is that the gap on the passenger side is even bigger. Damn my hood is warped! well so i thought, yesterday i went to the junkyard and bought a regular firebird hood, aside from a little rust the hood was perfect.
imagine my elation when the gaps were the same as the fiberglass hood.
well at least know i know tha it isn't the hood thats is tweaked, but my front end. the wierd thing is that the hoods all lined up with the hood pretty good all the way untill th very tip, you know the narrower area between the headlights. when i look at it from the side you cant even see the edges of the hood except at the tip were the hood is abover the fender line by almost half an inch.
this is the last obstacle, if i can defeat this one then it's off to get my car painted...
please give me some possibilities, i even replaced that part the the middle of the bumper is attached to, the one where to hood spring sits when the hoods closed....no luck....
please help me our guys this is getting stressful...
thanks

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

Your radiator support is prolly bent to ****, or bumper mount, etc.

Why not take it to a frame ship and have him check the specs?? might need a little time on the frame machine.

-- Joe

3.1EyeCandy

iTrader: (3)

92 firebird...RAII hood...that's gonna be sweet. Can we see some pics??? I know it doesn't look completely right as of right now...but none of the guys on the boards have seen the RAII with the aero package of the 91-92 birds. Thanks.

Blaze of Glory

sorry man i don't have any other pics other that the one above, and trust me you don't want to see it anyways... i don't want to take pictures untill i get that d.a.m.n gap fixed...
i get depressed every time i lok at that gap...*sigh*

Blaze of Glory

well can you guys at least tell me one thing, when you look at the fender at eye level is the tip off the hood supposed to be higher than the fender???

Blaze of Glory

????

TomP

From a look, seems like the back side of the hood, against the... ah hell do you mind if I edit your pic? If you mind, let me know, I'll edit this message and pull the pic.

Anyway, seems like at the area I circled, the back of the hood is going below the top of the fender. I don't think your front frame is bent this badly; because, you haven't even gotten the hood to align with the headlight. Say your rad support was bent up. The rad support doesn't affect the headlight mount; if it could, then two things: 1, it was one hell of an accident and you'd have much worse damage. 2, the headlight would also be pointed up, to meet the "mismatch" of the front of the hood, and it wouldn't line up with the edge of the fender. Let me know if that wasn't clear, I'll try to rephrase it.

What I think you have to do is raise the back of the hood. You haven't mentioned anything about adjusting those bumpers, so I take it that you never touched 'em. By "bumpers", I mean the little rubber circles that are mounted on screws. You can twist them so they rise or drop. There are a few bumpers where the back of the hood rests against the cowl. There are also bumpers located inside the hood hinges, at the back of the hinge; almost in line with the fender screws.

Once you raise the back of the hood, you need to drop the front. There are two bumpers on the panel that the hood latch sits on, near each headlight. There are also two bumpers on the radiator support. Take care while adjusting all of this; it's possible to really "hook" the hood onto the hood latch. You'd need another person to work the cable while you jiggle the hood up & down to get it to release.

If there was a huge gap between the front bumper and the headlight, I'd say the frame was shot, but I don't think that's so. You've got the headlights aligned with the top of the front bumper, and if the frame was bent down that badly, you couldn't have lined the headlights up. I think you just need to realign the hood. You might find out that you've got to realign the headlights.

Watch out for the innermost corner of the headlights where the panel meets the hood. If you don't align the hood correctly, when you flip the headlights up, the painted headlight cover can rub against that inside corner cutout of the hood. Hopefully you know what I mean... if not, I'll try to re-explain it. Good luck, let us know how it works out!

TomP

Oops, forgot the pic I edited:

And oops, noticed something else, look at the fender/hood relationship right behind the headlight. I think the back of that hood has gotta come up (by raising the rear hood bumpers) and the front of the hood has gotta come down (by lowering the hood's front bumpers). I think the front nose is fine.

Nasty_Bird_'90

this may be a little off subject, but whats the dfference betweenteh ram air and ram air II hood? pics?

igotslicksNchix

try popping a few shims in between the hood and the hinge in the back to pop the back up a bit and the front down a bit

Sauron91

I just ordered a ram air 2 for my 91 GTA..now I'm scared..
Take more pics and keep us updated!=P

Blaze of Glory

no i haven't tried adjusting those "bumper" but i sure will, the hood is acctually off right now so i will throw it back on tommorow and see what i can do....

Sauron91

Are you gonna keep us updated Glory?

Blaze of Glory

well i finally threw the hood back on yesterday, and after a few hours of trying to tweak the hood i had made no progress...
something has to me tweaked..the gap on the driverside is still bigger than the other by about a 1/4 inch...
i went to my body shop today, but the guy who does estimates wont be there will tuesday....and well that the only body shop i really trust around here, so it looks like i have to wait...
i already have the paint and everything....i'm going silver... as soon as the hood is fixed (if it ever fixed) the i just have to put on the ground effects and a few other things...and in a month i should have enough to buy some 17" or 18" torque thrust II's...
of course nothing ever goes as planned....

88 WS6 TransAm GTA

iTrader: (1)

I personally think the hood is defective. You see, the hood is aligned with the fender, and the head light is aligned with the fender. why its not closing all the way looks to me like the hood was made wrong or some serious warpage occured.

TomP

Blaze, what about the hinges? Are you using the stock hinges with that fiberglass hood? Maybe the driver's side hood hinge is bent/sprung? Is one "hood strut" more powerful than the other?

Blaze of Glory

it can't be the hinges, i have changed the hinges and have even layed the hood down with without any hinges at all...
a warped hood was my initial thought, but i slapped on an original hood i got at the junk yard and it won't sit right either, 3 hoods have been on it and they all don't fit the same way...

drewkivela

ya know, i have the same problem with my 87 formula. the kid i bought it from had a crappy bra on it and when i took it off i noticed the hood was jacked up.

chevymad

My 87 formula is the same way. I've had the car since 91 and as far as I know its never been wrecked in the front.

Xtreme Racer 86

I had that same problem with my twin turbo hood. I tried aligning it every way possible but it still wouldn't fit right. So what I did was heat the fiberglass up enough so that I could push it down to the headlight. Its very time consuming and you have to make sure it doesn't get too hot or it will bubble up. After you move it where you want, you have to keep it there till it cools. Basically your remolding the hood.

Xtreme Racer 86

I talked to the guys at motion glass performance about the hood problem, they said that it is really difficult to mold firebird hoods because of the curves. You probably got a hood from a bad mold.

scauffiel

What did you use to heat up that big of an area? I thought of that, using a heat gun, but man, that would take a helluva long time.

S.

TomP

Wow, bad molds?! That sucks! Hm; any chance you can return the hood and buy another one from somewhere else? Or has it been too long? Seems to me if you go fast enough, the wind is going to get up in that gap, and bend the hood. (Happened to me... But it was because my bumper was messed up.)

Blaze of Glory

well guys, it IS the hood. i went to the body shop and they told me the hood was indeed warped...
he said he could fix it but it would cost hundreds cause he would basically have to reglass the front part of the hood...
i doubt i could return it, it has been over a year...
the thing that really frustrated me is that i put back the original hood and there is still a gap... only the gap is smaller and the gap is even throught the whole nose...
but the guy at the body shop said he'll take a look at my car once i put on the original and he'll see what he can do....
sigh....

Xtreme Racer 86

I used a heat gun, It looks like a blow dryer that blows out heat. You just have to be really careful that the fiberglass doesn't bubble up. It takes about a half hour to do each side. You'll notice that the fiberglass will become soft, once this happens you have to remold it to where you want it. After that you have to either clamp it in place or hold it in place till it cools. I clamped mine with a c-clamp and a block of wood. If you can do it yourself it'll save you a ton of cash. They wanted to charge me $300 just to remold it. My heat gun was only $60.

anesthes

iTrader: (12)

That only works on bumper covers and stuff like that..

-- Joe