Rallye Hood Adjustment: 70 Challenger

Issue:
After I drive the car, the drivers-side-rear of the hood moves upward about 3/8"-1/2". When I get out of the car, I can push it back down and it is flush. The passenger side stays down.
Is there an adjustment that I can make or is this a spring issue?

Thanks

tighten the two bolts on that side. work with both sides so you get the gap where you want it on both sides and the rear (front to rear hood position). the female threads up in the hood part, that threaded/welded boss maybe loose/broken off and or the threads themselves stripped if it ain't holding an adjustment after you tighten the bolts. if they are just loose & need tightened then snug em & shut the hood & if is lined up right & repeat as needed then open the hood & tighten the bolts completely & your set. only caveat dont shut the hood all the way if it is shifted over enough to where a hood edge will catch the fender and or firewall top whatever it is called (valance?) & contact/scrape the paint

When the hood in in the shut position, it is aligned side/side and front/rear. I have the hood pins aligned too so that there is no drag. The hood stays down where it should be when the car is parked. When I am just cruising around, the hood raises a little bit on that same corner. When I drive it at WOT, then the hood moves up on that corner and I need to push it back down into position.
I have check hood clearance to air cleaner with clay and that looks good.

Now I am leaning towards the adjustment of that drivers side hinge height or a weak spring.

I will check the bolts to make sure that they are tight.

Thanks

You can adjust/tighten/align the hood all day. The rivets in the hinges are worn out. I see this all the time on e bodies.

Resto rick wrote a post on this a while back. Mine does it too. Still haven't messed with it...

http://www.restorick.com/tech/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10

I will try to make that adjustment this weekend. If that does not work, then I may have to look at new hinge assemblies over Winter.

Thanks

I raised the front of the bracket a quarter of an inch and rotated the rear. The hood pushed down flush at the rear. I drove it around a while and it stayed down. Then I went to WOT and the hood popped back up. When I got back into the garage I measured the gap at 1/2". I will try and raise the hinge a little more and see what happens.

But I wonder if this is an air filter to hood clearance issue. Since the hood stays down under cruising speeds, then it jumps up at WOT runs, I need to add some clay on the air filter to check the clearance.


Thanks

I grabbed some clay and shut the hood to find 1/2" minimum clearance on the passenger side. This is with the engine off.

I may have a clearance issue once the engine is revved up.

I raised the drivers side hinge up about 1/4"-3/8" and it helped. That corner of the hood stayed down after I shut it. (It usually stays up after the hood is latched and I have to push it down before I get in to drive.) But I need to keep going a little bit more because it still sticks up about 1/8" or so.

Do I need to adjust both sides or just the side with the issue?

The passenger side hinge is all the way down on the slots (just like the drivers side did) but that side does not pop up after a WOT run.

EDIT: If anyone can post pictures of their hood hinges that are setup properly, that would be a great reference. I would like to see where the bolts are located in the slots. Mine started all the way at the top.

My hinges are TIGHT! When the hood is up, I wiggles it from side to side to see how much play was in the pins and the hood was solid! Very little movement at all in the open position. So I lubed up the brackets and pins.

Thanks

A couple of questions for you....

-When you have the hood all the way open can you push back on the hood (up and back toward the windshield) and feel some sloppy movement? This is hard to explain but the hood should feel tight like it is resisting you with no movement. If you have movement that is more like an up and down and/or front to back then the hood hinges are probably worn. This is not a side to side (left to right) movement.

-When the hood is down and locked in place can you grab the back part of the hood (by the windshield) and lift it up or push it down? If so, again the hood hinges are probably worn.

My hood hinges are worn and they have the symptoms outlined in the questions above. If you suffer from these same symptoms then yours might be worn too. I can't say 100% for sure but I'm sharing what my hinges do and I know they are worn.

I don't feel any slop front to back while opening/closing the hood.

Before I made the first adjustment (moving the drivers side bracket up), the hood would not stay all the way up when fully open. It would drop a few inches and I just got used to it. Now the hood actually stays open after that one adjustment. Now I did add garage door lubricant to both hinges so this could have helped out too.

Before my first adjustment, I could pull up on the drivers rear corner of the hood when it was fully closed. Now that corner is tighter and it is harder to pull up. I can pull it up slightly but not more than 1/4" or so. This adjustment seems to be adding more tension on the spring. I did not get a chance to try the passenger side last night but maybe tonight.

The previous owner had the body work done and I am starting to think that he had new hinges put on it at that time. Since both hinges started in the full down position, I am going to tweak them both up 3/8" or so and see what happens. So far after just adjusting the drivers side slightly (1/4"-3/8"), it appears to be holding the hood down better in the closed position. The drivers side rear corner now goes most of the way down by itself when latching the hood. It only needs another 1/8" or so to be fully down. Before this adjustment, the drivers rear hood would be sticking up about 1/2-3/4" when latched and I would always push it the rest of the way down.

Thanks for your reply.

If anyone has some pictures of their hood hinges and where the bolts are located in the slots, that would be a great reference.

Thanks

When these cars were built the hood was adjusted with the hood down before paint and no motor. It would be very hard to do, but the only real way to get it right is to close it and adjust it from the bottom.

I thought of that but I am not sure if I have enough socket extensions to reach those bolts from underneath!

Thank you. I just might look into that method a little more.