Gas Flap Hood Corners Too High

[81dmc]

I'm eventually going to try the sanding body tub thing. I have maybe an inch worth of washers stacked on front fenders.


Oh the joys of having one of the first 500 cars..

[Michael]

Moving the latch down will make the problem worse. Watch this video I made a few years ago starting at 3:50
It explains my thoughts and fixes.
Shimming fenders and moving the catch is old guard Jerry rig fixes. People just blindly followed and accepted it when you only needed to use a little common sense.



PS: If you watch the whole video, I mispoke about the heat gun temps on correcting the fascia temps...I meant the heat gun got 1,500 degrees, not make the fascias that hot.

[81dmc]

Moving the latch down will make the problem worse. Watch this video I made a few years ago starting at 3:50
It explains my thoughts and fixes.
Shimming fenders and moving the catch is old guard Jerry rig fixes. People just blindly followed and accepted it when you only needed to use a little common sense.



PS: If you watch the whole video, I mispoke about the heat gun temps on correcting the fascia temps...I meant the heat gun got 1,500 degrees, not make the fascias that hot.

Yeah the factory seal is a POS. I got rid of that awhile ago.

You say picking the hood up at the corner doesn't do it, but it does for gas flap cars. The whole thing flexes like a wet noodle because there's less meat reinforcing it at that corner.

Now I do agree on your lowering latch theory, because that made my hood worse over the years. IMO, the real fix would be dual hood latches at corners, but I don't feel like redesigning that part of the car right now lol.


In any case, the issue is much more pronounced on my early vin, and I attribute that to the body tub and gas flap hood imperfections. I?m going to experiment sometime this year and report back.

[Bitsyncmaster]

My problem is the fenders are also up to high because the door is to low. I moved my door front latch all the way up that it can go but still the front fenders need to go lower to line up with the doors.

[81dmc]

When I was talking about hood warpage, I'm referring to how ALEXAKOS fixed the hood shape. https://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?7...anel-alignment

Kind of extreme.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Mine is just a little high on the drivers side. I used a sheet of paper to test where and how much the seal hits and it seems the seal is the problem. It locks the paper tight when closed and all other locations I can still pull the paper out. Problem seems to be at the curved area surrounding the gas fill area.

[mhanch]

(still better panel gaps than a Tesla)

[Bitsyncmaster]

What is the purpose of these. They do not hit the hood bumps.

[81dmc]

What is the purpose of these. They do not hit the hood bumps.

Those are what Dave T was referring to. Those catch the bump stops and prevent the hood from decapitating you in the event of a front end collision.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Those are what Dave T was referring to. Those catch the bump stops and prevent the hood from decapitating you in the event of a front end collision.

That makes sense. But I would not think those bump stops could stop much force.