I need to adjust the hood to nose alignment on an '86 Camaro "project car" that my son bought. The problem is that the front edge of the hood overlaps the top of the nose by about an inch. The hood hinges are adjusted back as far as they will go, which aligns the rear edge of the hood perfectly with the rear of the fenders. The front corners of the hood line up with the headlight openings, so the hood and fenders seem to be aligned relative to one another. It appears as though the middle of the nose is mounted too far back, but with the airbox (2.8 V6), headlight mounting panel, and urethane nose all interlocked as they are, I don't see how that would be possible, nor do I see any way to adjust it. I should mention that the hood came from a junkyard and there is a problem with the way it latches. When the hood release cable is pulled, I have to grab both front corners and rack them up and down before the hood latch releases. I've adjusted the latch and striker every which way, but that hasn't helped. Has anybody else had this problem?

 

From what you are describing, I am wondering if the nose might not have been punched at one time. An inch seems like an awful lot of overlap. You might want to unbolt the nose and take it off and look. Maybe simply unbolting the top portion will make the nose pop out to where it should be. Shouldn't be too big of a deal, couple of hours at most. The latch bar can be adjusted on the hood to make everything line up properly, sometimes it just takes trying until you luckily hit the perfect angle. Or maybe the latch itself is getting worn.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but I have it unbolted now. I also removed the airbox and filters, and unbolted the headlight mounting panel to see if maybe something was under tension from a hit. Since the hood lines up with the fenders, I guess it may be more accurate to say that the nose is pushed under the hood about an inch.