Topic: '65 Alignment of Hood & Headlight Door

[Skyway65]

Can anyone shed some light on the mystery of aligning the headlight door to the hood? As you can see from the photo they are pretty close, but my goal is to get these to line up much better. 

I have the fenders/hood and doors all lined up nearly perfect so these headlight doors should just go right on, right?  What detail am I missing here?   

Also, I have a photo of the car from 1978-before it was taken apart and the hood headlight doors did not fit correctly then either.  Is this just one of those things that is normal?  Comments or thoughts please…

[CharlesTurner]

The headlight extension is bent inward from over-tightening the screws.  You can try spreading them out, but have to be careful of cracking the paint.

[Skyway65]

That sounds pretty simple Charles; I had nightmare thoughts of redoing the whole front end...

[bryancobb]

Gary,

IMHO, you have achieved a fit that would have passed muster on the assembly-line, but like me you want better.  I enlarged your photo as larger as possible. 

When I looked closely at the rear edge of the headlight door (extension), where it intersects the fender and the hood.  Just like mine, It looks like it can go up 1/16" at this point and that will help a lot.  The problem is, the back surface of "dish" acts like a funnel and as you tighten the screws, it forces the part to the position yours is in.

In the quest for near perfection, I did something the assembly line would have never done.  I used a piece of carbon paper, sandwiched between there as I tightened the screws to "MARK" the area that caused the interference, on the headlight door.  Then I used a die-grinder to remove enough of the pot-metal on the back side, to eliminate the interference.

I did this before I painted the parts but it doesn't show so if you are careful to not generate too much heat, you could do it after painting and touch up the back with a brush.

I say again, In my opinion, you already have a Ford-Happy fit!    

[Skyway65]

Bryan and Charles--thanks for the ideas.  Now I have something that I can work on this weekend...But, Bryan, do they still even make carbon paper!?  I haven't seen any in YEARS!

[CharlesTurner]

In my experience, these usually fit nicely on original cars.  I wouldn't accept poor fit and discard it as "good enough" by Ford.  The only way I would consider this is if there was a pattern found on original cars.

[Skyway65]

In my experience, these usually fit nicely on original cars.  I wouldn't accept poor fit and discard it as "good enough" by Ford.  The only way I would consider this is if there was a pattern found on original cars.

Yes Charles I agree- I have been scouring the internet looking at photos of original cars and most of them do appear to fit correctly but I have also seen MANY restored cars where the fit is not so good...

[CharlesTurner]

Yes Charles I agree- I have been scouring the internet looking at photos of original cars and most of them do appear to fit correctly but I have also seen MANY restored cars where the fit is not so good...

Yep, very typical to see poor panel fit and workmanship on restored cars.  This is usually a by-product of buying all the parts out of a catalog and not even attempting to restore original parts.  Even the Ford service replacement sheet metal and body parts can have fitment issues.

I think with a little work, you can make the extensions fit better.  Rest the center of the extension on a block of wood and try to spread it outward.  Basically think of how they got bent in the first place with the screws and try to reverse it.

[bryancobb]

In my experience, these usually fit nicely on original cars.  I wouldn't accept poor fit and discard it as "good enough" by Ford.  The only way I would consider this is if there was a pattern found on original cars.

Charles,

I also sort-of smirk when someone says something like I said above..."you have achieved a fit that would have passed muster on the assembly-line."  I like to think that our standards were high, and as you say, most pictures show a nice fit on original cars.

But... Specifically on MY car,  I am pretty sure that both of my headlight doors are the OEM assembly line ones that came on the car.  It has never had any front end damage at all.  One of mine adjusted easily to be flush with the top surface of the fender.  The driver's side one however, would slide downward when the screws were snugged up.  There was no way to adjust it further because metal was hitting metal.  There was no way this could have been adjusted-away on the assembly line unless washers or spacers were installed between the headlight door and the fender to keep tightening the screws from pulling the part downward.

[CharlesTurner]

Bryan: The top of your headlight assembly is probably cracked at the mounting area and causing the gap on the top edge.

[jwc66k]

Archaic design, mutiple vendors, accumulative tolerances, mass production, mutiple assembly locations, assembly line indifference, overworked quality control, decades of use, removal to replace burnt out bulbs, insensitive owners, accidents, replacement Ford parts, kids, parking lots - and you want a good decent fit?
Jim 

[CharlesTurner]

Archaic design, mutiple vendors, accumulative tolerances, mass production, mutiple assembly locations, assembly line indifference, overworked quality control, decades of use, removal to replace burnt out bulbs, insensitive owners, accidents, replacement Ford parts, kids, parking lots - and you want a good decent fit?
Jim

Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.

[jwc66k]

Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.

Not hardly, the excuses included being drunk, or stoned, or both - prior, during and after a shift.

[J_Speegle]

Always have to consider IMHO that part alignment only tends to fall out of alignment over the years rather than into alignment    Plenty of examples of even driven cars with still great fit after all these years. Plenty of reasons for things not to fit after the same period.  Think there is plenty of evidence of the attempts and efforts to get things right and of course the out of the ordinary stories always get told and retold since they are unusual

Always looked at most of the workers as family men that were proud of what they were doing and earning their pay. Our dads and uncles rather than the handful of town stoners or drunks. Have found few workers that took credit for being one of those workers. It was always this other guy

[C5ZZKGT]

Charles will remember my car I think in this area.
My restorer felt that the headlight doors fit like Ford did them originally.
I don't feel this way but I haven't as of yet tried to fix my left side door.
Weird thing is there is a repro on the right side and it fits perfect and lines up well with the hood.
I'm actually thinking about getting a repro for the right side and try it and if it fits well I'll have it painted and put it on
I also believe that MOST cars came off the line better than MOST restored cars do.