I am working with a new brookville body & firewall with a new rubber seal. When I place the rear hood bracket on the body the gap from the bracket to the firewall is quite a bit lower (1/4"). Not sure if its my bracket (vintiuqe) or just because the rubber is new. I have not drilled any holes yet.
Pics help. I have a Brookville 3w with a stock firewall and an original (or at least old and used, so I assume original) seal (I will have a new one somewhere but can't remember why it's not installed!) and a Vintique bracket and it all fits perfectly. Is your body snugged down with the cowl band fixings? Pretty sure that would make a difference especially with a new seal. But you've got me thinking / worrying about the new seal!!!! Chris
Somewhere along the way the repro firewall seal became tapered and I've seen it mentioned online that guys will sand the profile so it fits better. Does yours have the taper?
On my OEM coupe with OEM firewall and Vintique seal, it took 3 different repro hinge brackets to find one that fit in nicely. Sorry but I don't remember which ones were good or bad. You may just need to find a different brand and see how it fits.
Think I will order a drake rear as it seems closer to the original. Most aftermarket brackets use countersunk screws in all four holes the drake does not like original Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
The one I used on my brookville fitted the same as yours. Put an old hood top on the car and it fits well front to rear. It came for Joes Antique. Don’t recall if was Drake are Vintique.
I was mistaken. Pulled it back out and yes tapered like your pic If I use no gasket it’s too high so either sand it like you said of find the correct one. Thanks Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
post #8 above is showing four different reproduction parts not fitting together properly, hard to tell which one is at fault. The Vintique rear hood hinge bracket I tried to use on my original cowl was too wide to fit down in the channel. The tab that the hood hinge buts up against was formed too far back.
I don’t remember who the supplier was but years ago they were made correctly and now they have taper, or maybe it’s just too much. Anyone know of a repro that works without modification? Cowl and grille shell lacing isn’t what it used to be either. It used to flatten out after a while to the right height and contour, but now it’s softer and eventually settles too much. I’ve heard the inner core that was used before is a banned substance now.
All of the after market hood hinges are made wrong, original hood hinges will set vertical if you set it on the flat part that stopes the hood from moving front to back. With the after market hinges they set at an angle and holes won't line up properly.
Last year we tried three different cowl band gaskets on original Ford bodies and firewalls. Surprisingly we found the Vintique to fit best. I think the cowl shown above isn't fitting tight enough to the firewall, so maybe the gasket is too thick. I sanded a Drake (IIRC) gasket down for the current project I'm working on. If you tried doing that then maybe that hinge bracket would sit down right and screw to the firewall too.
I have a Brookville body as well, put an original hood bracket on and I had the same mismatch between bracket and firewall. As I am not running a hood and only wanted the bracket for the "look" I put a spacer under it.
The car I commented on has no seal between the cowl and firewall. No sealer of any kind. The hood top fits good. Might try no seal but use some sorta sealer.
What you want to do is thin out the taper of the cowl seal so that the top, rear edge of the firewall is about even with the flange on the front of the cowl as seen where I marked the photos with the red arrows. Leave enough on the seal so that it gets compressed a bit. With that done your hood bracket should meet the f/w without the need of a shim.
The firewall kit I bought from Brookville also included about 15 small Allen head screws. What are they for. Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
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