• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

TR2/3/3A Bonnet alignment question

Share this page

Tinkerman

Tinkerman

Darth Vader
Offline
We're finally trying to line up the hood on the 1960 TR3, but we're having some issues and wanted to see if anyone had some advice. It won't align front to back - we're about 1/2-1/4 inch off. The hood almost seems too long. Is there any way to move or adjust the crossbar that the apron (and hood latch) bolts to? We tried moving the hood all the back by adjusting the hood latches, but it rides up on the cowling - how much gap should be there? Any pictures?

It might fit if we could pull that apron up and forward, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that since it bolts directly in the cross bar.
Any advice or tips would be appreciated!
-Tinkerman
 
How is the apron fit along the front edge compared to the wings? Even, or do the wings hang down farther than the apron?
 
I'd be looking at the spacers where the body mounts to the frame. There are two bolts on each side of the fender apron. (below the carbs on the right and below the coil on the left) and then one on each side near the front/bottom of fender aprons. There are round metal, slotted spacers and rubber or cloth "washers" between the body and frame. Too much thickness there would raise the front body which would close the gap between the hood and front apron. About the only other adjustment I know of is in the hood hinges at the cowl...which sounds like you have already tried. A little "fine tuning" can be done with a hammer and block of wood on the brackets the cross bar mount to, but not 1/2 inch. Given the lack of being able to eyeball it, that's all I can guess.
 
Sliding the hood back is the most common way to fix that because the apron is trapped in those brackets. Klaycamps idea of maybe getting the apron to come down and out is good. If that does not work, I notice on Johns 1955 he actually cut one of the brackets free and moved it. I cannot remember whether he moved it up or down.

I would set this up towards the back as much as possible so as to still get the vent to open. I have slotted the screw holes on the vent to get it back as far as possible and doubled up with thicker gasket material to lift the hood in the back kinda up and over the top of the cowling to get an 1/8 or maybe ÂĽ before. I have also taken sheet metal toungs or vise grips before and opened and pushed down the brackets that key the apron.

Was the front end ever smashed back enough to create this problem? If so, I would consider drilling out the apron bracket spot welds and let the apron slide down to where you like it, but only after I exhausted all other options. Plus this all depends on what faze the paint job is in, if you are done painting then use some thin cardboard like cereal boxes and lightly tape them along the problem areas and consider that first.

It will go somehow and like asked, what is the gap on both sides of the fenders? Is the gap even on both sides of the hood? So the hood is not cockeyed, but sitting square and parallel to the fenders and meeting the apron with an even gap along the hood because this would matter on how you proceed to fix the hood problem, Kinda like a theory of relativity but smaller.
steve
 
Back
Top