thanks for all your help. I took the day off work yesterday and spent some quality time with the vette. The hood is not on yet. I reaized that there is no way it will work without shims. I think I've finally got the alignment correct. It was sitting on its side in a barn for 10 years. But thanks to cfcaffidi I was able to fix the warping. Thanks so much for the advice.

 

Any one remove the hardtop by themselves besides me?


PS no slings or gadgets to assist,
freestyle only

 

Fixing to pull the hood and put the new hinges on.
How much does the hood weigh?
Luckily my daughter is spending the day. Little does she know that if I can mod a couple things quickly she may be helping.

Shamelessly copied this from somewhere else. Does this sound similar?

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Tip #1: Drill a 1/8" diameter hole through the mount plate of the hinge.

This will allow you to insert an Awl or other long slender object through the hole to help you realign the hood to where it was before.

Tip #2: Remove the hood by disconnecting the hinges from the car – leave them connected to the hood.

This tip may seem counter intuitive and I totally found it by accident The reason I say do this is because if you disconnect the hinge from the hood (leaving it attached to the body) the hood will.

1. Slide down into the area in front of the radiator (which will not happen if you leave the hinge connected to the hood and unattach at the body.)
2. Will require a second person to support the hood while you are working on the other side. (I was able to pull the hood by myself with no assistance and no damage to the hood or car)
3. Will also make more difficult installing the hood as someone else will have to support it while you are aligning the hinge bolts (by disconnecting at the body – you can rest the weight of the hood on the hinges even if they are not aligned, while you go about the business of aligning them.)

 

I like the drill idea but this won't work for a new hood.

My old stock '77 hood weighed around 35 pounds I think.

My new hood weighs a hair over 20.

 

hey joe, i'm glad i could help...it's easy to forget with vettes that we're dealing with a flexible material, fiberglass will do stange things over time. keep in mind that, once i got the hood back on and straight or flat again (however you want to look at it), i still had to mess with the shims up at the latches. i had to take out some of the original ones in order to get the top corners to close low enough to match up with the quarter panel edges. those edges never really matched up since i first got the car. the hood always sat too high. i think that is a common problem with vettes. another thing i wanted to mention is that, after i took out the shims at the latch clip on the passenger side, it would not reach the latch connection when i closed the hood so i had to make the rubber grommits that sit on the hood sill plate a little thinner and now it matches up really close. in other words, those rubber grommits were holding the hood too high and were the reason the hood never really matched up with the quarter panels. hope this help...good luck...carmen s.