So I've got some more pictures of the hood.

I have some issues still.

1) The hood still sits too low beyond the fenders by about 1/4". Not the whole hood. It seems to be flush with the fender and then about midway it starts to drop down.

- I'm not 100% sure on how to fix this area. I was thinking I can use the evercoat kitty hair fiberglass filler. Make it flush to the fenders with the kitty hair and a slight top coat of filler. Not sure if that's gonna be too thick. I suppose another option would be to add more layers of fiberglass until it's close and then a light top coat of filler to make it look nice.

This brings up another issue. I bought the dzus fasteners for the hood to hold it down. I got 3 going along the sides and then 2 regular hood pins up front. If I use the described method up top then it would be too thick for the dzus fasteners. But then again, the hood would be flush with the fender tops, which is important to me of course. I suppose if I went this route I would have to use a legitimate hood latch up front vs just using the hood pins, if I were to delete the dzus fasteners.

2) The front of the hood doesn't go down low enough, and its creating too big of a gap to the top of the grill.


This one is bugging!

One trick that I tried was, I clamped the front down with some C-clamps to my desired gap height. I then placed foam underneath the hood and glassed it in to help it retain that shape. Unfortunately it didn't really work. Helped but it's still an issue.

If I use a hood latch, of course I can use it to hold the front of the hood down, and I can adjust it to my desired grill to hood gap. I'm not sure how proper it would be though to use the hood latch to somewhat... Force the hood into place. Wouldn't take that much pressure really. I noticed the hood seems to have some slight "flex" in it. Nothing crazy.... it just needs to go down about 1/2", maybe a little less.

I would maybe prefer to use a more appropriate option for fixing this issue?

3) The rear of the hood on the passenger side sticks out about 1/4" then gets level again, then begins to do the 1/4" drop. Now, if I use the dzus fasteners, it nicely pushes the hood down in that corner and makes it flush with the fender.

Not exactly sure on how to fix this issue... On 1 hand, not sure how acceptable it is to use the dzus fasteners to hold down the hood like that. Then on the other hand, if I use my idea on leveling out the hood, that would require me to ditch the dzus fastners, so no fastener in that corner to hold it down.

Well... this is the issue with my hood. If anyone has any input on fixing these issue, that would be greatly appreciated!! I am just stuck and frustrated with the issue... and too be honest, I cant seem to really think of the best way to fix it.

Thanks!!

heres a pic of the rear corner, without using the dzus fastener.

Well, now you're living through the downside of the "one off piece." If that was a commercial piece from a decent supplier it would be like a phone call and some guy out in there shop would say.... "Hey, yeah, you relief cut it here or there and clamp and fiberglass it or add a stiffener. With the minor amounts you are trying to adjust it is hard to "move' the fiberglass and get it to hold that new shape. On old hoods I literally get out the sawzall and start making kerf cuts where I need it to flex, clamp it to shape and start using metal and epoxy from the underside to hold it permanently. And, okay, this is really out there....but I have done it at least twice.... magnets. I've had at least two panels on older kit cars that just would not go to shape. I mean like I got them to within about 1/4 to 3/8s of an inch to the level but I just couldn't get them completely to shape. I bought some fairly powerful bar magnets and placed them where I need them, and hid them in the fiberglass along with the matching metal strike plates fiberglassed into the edge lip underneath. It worked well enough on one panel that over time the fiberglass actually kept it's shape and I removed the magnets..... yeah, I know, it's nuts but hey, I made it work and you couldn't see it.