Do you have the assembly instruction manual (AIM) for your model year?

 

yes i do have an AIM.

 

I'll post this evening with some AIM pages for you to review.

 

ok thanks

 

PM sent.

 

i never knew it takes this much work to restore a car and plus i guess i worked with the wrong body/paint shop. my friend and brother pls help me. i kinda have a feeling like someone took of the nose and did not put it back correctly. i might be wrong also. help

anyone knows a good shop in Everett, Lynnwood Washington that i can take my car.

 

hi? looking at this picture. the hood seem to match with the fender line but the fender line is not matching to the door line.

 

find a new body shop

 

You should check if the fiberglass has separated from the metal between the two head lights. Its common fo rthat to happen and the fiberglass lifts. Push down gently between the head lights and see if the fiberglass moves.

I think you should try anothr hood.

Jim

 

Hi? can someone pls take measurement of their 80, 81, 82 corvette hood space. i need side to side or side by side dimension of open hood bay. fender to fender. thanks

 

Hi, new pic for you to look at. the center rod where vacumn canister is mounted is not bolted on to the top of the front nose.

 

Thats your problem at the the front. The fibreglass has separated from the metal. Mine had done that too. Before I had it painted I had it rivited back to the metal. I have seen others fix that by injecting apoxy and clamping it, it works. buts its harder to fix this way. The best fix is to rivit though.

Jim

 

Your car appears to have been whacked in the past and ill repaired. You may have an extremely difficult time getting anything to align without some body work.

 

The more I look at it the more thats becomes apparent. You have cracks on both sides. Your third picture shows a brace not lined up right. The front clip doesn't look like its sitting right. Any fix with out fitting it right would be a just a bandaid solution.

I'm not sure you would be able to push down the fibreglass on the front and bond it without getting things lined up right.

 

Hi? it seems like it coming down to fix my problem the front nose has to completely come off and put back on.

please i need detail step by step instructions, tools, material, glue needed to completely remove the front nose and put it back on.

 

http://www.glas-ra.com/frontend1968thru1982.html

Are you certain you want to do this? Replacing a clip is extremely difficult to do working by yourself and in limited space.

 

From looking at all of your pictures, it's pretty obvious that your car has had a nose put on it. Probably as the result of an accident, and likely by someone who had no idea what they were doing.

From looking at the nose, I'd say that it was hung wrong. The left fender is high in front, requiring all of those non factory spacers, under the hood hinge, to get the hood even close to the surround panel. The drip gutter is breaking away from the left front, probably as a result of the fender being mounted wrong. The left fender is also cracked in the drip gutter at the cowl, and has 2 sheet metal screws in the drip gutter, in an attempt to secure the fender. By the way, the weatherstrip on the cowl, is supposed to be glued to the rear edge of the hood, not on the cowl drip gutter.

There's a lot going on at the front of the surround panel also. Besides the unattached support rod, the surround panel reinforcement, appears to have separated from the top surround. If the reinforcement is loose, re-attaching it may pull down the center of the surround panel. Of course, with the other problems that the nose appears to have, re-attaching it could cause other problems elsewhere with the nose. Since the surround is high, attaching the center support rod, may pull down the center of the surround too, but it could also push it up more. It really depends on whether everything underneath is in the right position now, or if something's bent or out of place.

The right front fender looks like it might be mounted too far back and too low, causing the alignment issues at the door.

Unfortunately, I don't think the body shop you had paint the car, knows anything more about working on Corvettes, than whoever hung the nose. That any body shop would paint a car, without first fitting the hood, is just plain scary. I wonder if the shop went to fit the hood, and realized that there were issues with the nose. Maybe they just decided to ignore the fitment of the hood. It might have been easier than investing hours in aligning things, that would cause them to loose money, based on the price they quoted you to paint the car?.

I don't think that any amount of spacers, bumpers, shims or alignment, will get that nose and hood to really fit right. I'm not a body man, but I suspect that the right way to fix things, is to break the nose loose, make sure nothing is bent underneath, and then re-install the nose correctly. This is not a job for an amateur. Someone replacing the nose without knowing what they were doing, is why you have the problems that you do.

 

mike what else can i do. car is not looking right. if there is an easy fix i will go with that but it doesn't look like.

 

Fraid not.

 

Hi? do any one thinks i need to buy a new used hood.