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I have my headlight pulled out to work on the headlight motor. Yesterday I noticed a large gap between the hood and wheel well. What the heck can cause this? The hood can't be this far out of adjustment can it? With it closed it only looks a 1/4 off at most. This gap is way bigger then that.
first pic is passenger side from inside the wheel well
second pic is where the light should be looking back at the wheel well on driver side.
Last edited by jerrspud; Jun 29, 2017 at 12:49 PM.
Well you can adjust (a bit) the inside of your wheel well. Check your mounting bolts. Unless I'm seeing it wrong, the bottom picture (lower right corner) show it completely adjusted down? This along with the rubber trim off track.
How is your hood alignment?
Last edited by billschroeder5842; Jun 29, 2017 at 03:53 PM.
Not common. I have never seen a gap like that. All of mine have contacted the weatherstrip and compressed it.
It looks to be a couple inches off of normal. Something must be way off.
Do you have any pictures with the hood open to show the whole wheel well uppers, and a similar one to show the whole lower section? I am not sure we will be able to see what it is, but maybe we can see if something is not mounted right, damaged, etc.
Do you have the upper fender liners installed? I can't really tell from the pix, they're too close. Other than that I dunno...
the weather strip? that's is there.
Originally Posted by QCVette
Not common. I have never seen a gap like that. All of mine have contacted the weatherstrip and compressed it.
It looks to be a couple inches off of normal. Something must be way off.
Do you have any pictures with the hood open to show the whole wheel well uppers, and a similar one to show the whole lower section? I am not sure we will be able to see what it is, but maybe we can see if something is not mounted right, damaged, etc.
that's doesn't sound fun.
I'll take some more pics.
Not the weatherstrip. There should be the upper portion of the fender liner attached to the inside the hood with ~6-8 torx screws. When the hood is down it seals against the lower portion, seen in your pix.
Not the weatherstrip. There should be the upper portion of the fender liner attached to the inside the hood with ~6-8 torx screws. When the hood is down it seals against the lower portion, seen in your pix.
or the nose is off? not sure why there wold be such a large gap in wheel well height though.
Just a guess that there is some bending of the frame from a prior accident and someone adjusted the hood to make it look as good as possible externally that led to the gap you are seeing.
Here's a suggestion for something you can try. Unbolt the upper fender liner from the hood and place it in position over the wheel opening to see how it fits when not attached to the hood. It may be possible that the liner is distorted somehow which is causing the large gap. I noticed in your pictures that there is a crack in the rear edge of the liner which may indicate that it is warped or damaged in some way. If your liner does seem to fit OK when placed on the wheel opening, you might be able to add shims between the underside of the hood and the top surface of the liner to close up the gap.
Second picture from the top: look at the bolt with a oval bolt hole. That one is adjusted completely to one end. If it controls the inner wheel well position then its at its lowest position. See if you can loosen it (and others if present) and adjust inner wheel well up.
It must be parts from different years. Probably a newer hood.
Look at theese inner fendes, pictures from ebay. The newer is much higher and would probably close the gap. Replacing the inner fenders on the hood is probalby easier and better.
hmm... I was worried it may be a different hood. I looked at the inner fenders and didn't seem like much room for adjustment. I'll take a closer look and see what's going on when I get a chance. The guy that had this car before me had a few vette's and it's entirely possible it's a different hood. Do the hoods have date stamps anywhere?
thanx for your input guys. I'll definitely follow up when I get some more info.
Last edited by jerrspud; Jul 12, 2017 at 11:07 AM.
It must be parts from different years. Probably a newer hood.
Look at theese inner fendes, pictures from ebay. The newer is much higher and would probably close the gap. Replacing the inner fenders on the hood is probalby easier and better.
LARGE gap between hood and wheel well
