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During the winter, I noticed my hood was out of alignment. I asked for some tech advice here on the Forum and barrowed some manuals from a friend. Today, I took care of it. My wife gave a little help, and it was done within an hour.

The simplified drawing (below) of the hood and gap measurements show the problem (exaggerated). I took the measurements with a dial caliper. I should have put tape at each measurement location because a small change of location really changes the measurements. So the before and after measurements do not make the improvement nearly as obvious as can be seen just looking at it. The photos show the change.



It appeared the left hood hinge (LH in the figure) was where it belongs. From the gap measurements, it looked like I could move the right hinge (RH) toward the back of the car and get everything aligned. Moving the right hinge should cause the hood to rotate around the left hinge and even out the gaps.

Thanks to the advice of Forum members, the manuals I barrowed, and a little observation of the obvious, here is what I did:

1. Opened the hood
2. Applied tape to surfaces that might make contact if I made a mistake
3. Used a grease pencil to mark the RH hinge mount and frame to make the amount of adjustment visible
4. Removed the hood strut at the hood end (my wife steadied the hood at this point)
5. Loosened the two nuts holding the hinge to the frame
6. Repositioned the hood hinge (after two iterations, I moved it .125 inch (3mm))
7. Reattached the strut
8. Gently lowered the hood (do not try to latch it shut before step 10 – latches may not align)
9. Iterate steps 4 through 8 until the fit looks about right
10. Checked the hood latches to make sure they align
11. In my case, I needed to move the right latch in the same direction and distance I moved the right hinge – loosen three bolts and adjust – maintaining same height of the latch
12. Checked where the two tabs extend into holes in the hood to ensure clearance (these were now better centered)
13. Rechecked gaps around the hood
14. Closed hood
15. Opened hood and rechecked torque on all the bolts that were loosened
16. Closed hood
17. Job complete.

Photos before and after
Was photos appear first and are followed by Now photos

Left near windshield - the gap was way too wide. Look at the difference in how wide the upper jaws of the caliper are separated.


Right gap to bumper cover - gap was too small and almost rubbing. Also the tapered gap is obvious in the was condition photo. The gap is larger and not tapered in the "now" photo.


Left hinge adjustment (the area around the washer shows the amount of movement)


Left hood latch adjustment was required since the latch does not accommodate very much location error in the front to back direction.




I want to thank the Forum members that gave me advice on this when I asked for help.

 

Nice, logical sequence. Good writeup

 

Thanks.
I was hesitant to tackle the hood adjustment, but it turned out to be pretty simple. I really did not want to put it in a shop for this because of concern the job might not be done with the amount of care that I wanted taken.

 

I've been thinking about buying a 2nd hood for road racing use only. Are the C5 hoods a real pain to swap out?

 

Great write up

Thats going to save a few people a lot of time