New EMS Hinges---hood alignment issues
 

I got my new EMS hinges installed on the weekend, replacing my stockers. Fit with the originals was near perfect. I played with these new hinges for a few hours and have run out of solutions so am looking for fix ideas. My depth is perfect, side gaps are perfect. I have an issue with gap on the front of the hood with the header panel. Any adjustment ideas?

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...r/100_3628.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...r/100_3629.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...r/100_3630.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...r/100_3631.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...r/100_3632.jpg

Not to be critical, but I don't think the fit was "perfect"with the stock hinges. If the back and side gaps are correct, you can only move the hood front and back. If you skew it the other gaps will suffer. Maybe it is an illusion, but in the drivers side picture the stripes line up. In the pass. side picture, they do not. That has nothing to do with the hinges. I have feeling you are looking more closely at these areas since you put the new hinges and maybe did not pay as close attention before. JMO, but pictures may be deceiving. Good luck! Hang in there.:thumbsup:

It is hard to tell from the pictures what is off. Is there too much space, or is it not sitting flush, etc?

Matt

from the pics, it looks like the gap is tighter on the ds than on the pass. theres nothing the hinges can do. you can rack the hood, but its a give a little to take a little.

I had to shim the driver side hinge over to get gaps equal on each side. The reason why I replaced the stock hinges was a bad driver side hinge that wouldn't suck down properly. You had to push down on the back corner to get the hood down once the hood was latched. I am thinking that maybe with the sloppy hinge the sheet metal was installed to compensate. Now with good hinges its making things look a little off.

You might have to loosen and adjust the entire front end to see any improvement. Uneven header gaps are hard to track down. How were the gaps with the old hinges? Sometimes you have to sacrifice one gap a little to improve another.

How are the door to fender gaps on both sides? Are they the same? What about door to quarter panel gaps? It looks to me like the two sides are likely different.

Don

I agree with Chad, it looks like the gaps were not perfect with stock hinges. Have you measured fender to hood gap on both sides or just eyeballed ? If the gaps are in fact identical and you have uneven gaps on front and/or back of the hood, that means it was never perfect and to get them right,you'll have to shift sheetmetal around to get even gaps

You might want to check that your subframe is installed square. Then go from there. It is a real pain in the ass to get all the gaps right.

The gaps were better with the stock hinges, especially in that front corner. All my door to fender gaps are good but it is a little tighter on the driver door to front fender. Whats the process for sliding the driver fender forward a touch? Pretty much everything has to come off?

Clill may be right, the subframe may be off a hair. I may just get it close as possible and then live with it until the car gets paint. Thats the next major project. It drives me crazy though.

I agree with others. Hopefully the problem is that the front sheetmetal just isn't quite square. you could measure diagonally across the engine bay and see if it is off. If it is, you could probably fix it my loosening up the bolts on the core support, cowl, etc. a little and giving it a push in whatever direction it needs. Panel gaps are a pain though, so there is no guaranteeing that this will be the fix.

Matt

I think that is a problem that a lot of Camaro owners have learned to live with... I know I have

you will have to loosen all the bolts attached to the right fender including the inner fender. You will need to add a shim to the vertical firewall bolt to hold fender foward. You should not had needed to shim the hinge. Loosen the right hinge so that the fender slides without moving the hood. Once foward, retighten everything and recheck hood.

Gapping is a game of "nanos" -- as in splitting the differences... a 1/16th here is a 1/16th there... and if you're not willing to tear the car apart to have a total re-do.... then you just have to start splitting the differences to get it "close". Shimming is effective... it's what the factory did.

I had a tweeked radiator support do that to me once. You just have to compensate with more adjustments. Which echoes everyone's opinion.

Difficult to do in your case cause all the body work that was done was around the original hinges.

Vince