Things were going pretty well until it was time to try on the hood. It went down hill from there.

So the hood mounting on these trucks is another interesting operation. The center of the hood is the entire hood support. There is a single rear bracket that is spot welded to the hood center. That bracket extends out below, and towards the sides where it bolts to the top of the firewall. The front of the hood has a similar bracket, but it bolts to a separate piece that bolts to the front panel. The piece that bolts to the front panel that came on my truck was not the correct part, I think someone got that part from a Chevy truck that is close, but fits incorrectly. The next issue with the hood center is it has a curved front end that drops several inches lower then the rear of that center piece. The hood center is fully formed sheet metal. The two hood sides hang off the canter piece. They are also fully formed sheet metal, but the size of each side makes each side pretty heavy. Too heavy for the center to support. The center piece tends to crack across the top surface. There are no hinges for the side panels, Dodge used the rolled sheet metal of the hood sides to form the hinge, but that rolled edge does not continue around the curved center piece which compounds the fatigue for the center piece. I have added a 1/2" round bar stock onto each side of the hood center that extends from the rear mounting bracket to the front mounting bracket. Then I usually have to weld the cracked sheet metal, and often straighten the bent hood center. Just to make things more fun, the center piece does not curve all the way down to the front panel. there is a gap of about 2" between the top of the front panel and the bottom of the hood center and both hood sides. Dodge added a chrome filler piece on the 48-50 models The 51 to 53 the hood center and the front panel met without the filler piece. Of course, I didn't have that filler piece either. Those pieces are available, but are pricy.
Pic 1, Front sheet metal bolted at the rear of the fenders, and blocked up into position. Radiator clamped into position.
Pic 2, As low as it can mount and have the top hose clear the fan. The hood can't come down any more, its almost in contact with the radiator cap at this point.
Pic 3, There is 3/4" between the radiator and the fan, the radiator can't move forward any more, I already had to trim the corner of the fender.
pic 4, Screwed! I can cut the angle iron off, but the right side (left side of the pic) of the radiator won't let the hood come closed. See that black line on the sheet metal under the hood center? That is the highest the hood center can be, its an inch too high.

I ended up cutting the top 8" off of the Dakota radiator support, then I could use the it and the original Dakota radiator. I had to create a new method to hold the top of the radiator in position, because originally it was bolted to the part I had to cut off the top of the radiator support. The Dakota radiator had to be in an exact location or it wouldn't clear the hood corners either. Then the radiator fill was under the hood center and the hood had to be removed to add coolant. I did have a recovery bottle, but the upper radiator hose was above the top of the radiator. I did add an in hose filler, but it didn't work very well. The whole deal was boarder line functional.
But the truck had a radiator that held coolant, and the hood closed, keep moving forward. Gene