Nose/Hood fit

[Bossbill]

My car car appears to have had an awful nose/hood fit from the get go.

First pic is one from about 30 years ago after it had a no-jamb scratch and squirt paint job. Sorry, best shot I have.

Here is the fit today. I remember pulling out a small amount of weird blue filler under the original coat of paint. But it wasn't enough to fill this gap!

How much can I fill in the nose piece so it still looks like an original Shelby but has some semblance of fit? Almost all of the pictures of other cars I have are with the hood up!

[Yeah, I accidentally filled the 4th rivet hole].

[67 GT350]

What does the other side look like? So about 1990? Lots could have happen from 1967 to 1990.

[1175]

There was some crumbly yellow/ beige filler in mine in that area to close gap to hood.  Wondering if it could have been original fill to make gap look better.  My car certainly was not unmolested before I bought it.  The only reason I suspect could be original is that the filler was dissimilar to any other filler on the car when I stripped it.

Jon

[Bossbill]

Here is the other side. Better but still a large gap.

The front bumper is original as are the brackets (all the correct date codes).
The fenders are original and the front rad support sheet metal is unbent and original.
The hood is original and the nose appears so as well. Hood and nose were stripped down to gel coat and have no or minimal damage.

From all indications the entire front structure is original to the car.

[67 GT350]

In my guess-a-pinion, I would fill in the nose and follow the line of the fender. I bet it was that way, (filled), I had a 67 years ago and it was like that, (maybe not as bad) but I think you can make it look good. As you can see the drivers side is also off. Again my personal opinion would be to correct it, but correct it enough to make it look good, not perfect, but enough that makes you happy. They never were perfect gaps.

[J_Speegle]

Here are some examples from 67








The following are all from the same car. Don't know if the car is typical, prepped or cherry picked for the photoshoot

[Bossbill]

Those examples look much better than mine. I was worried that if I made this area look too good it would look less Shelby.

It may well be that the many years ago this car was initially torn apart that we dug out "factory filler" in this area and I forgot all about it.

I'll bring this more inline of what the pictures suggest.

Thanks again, Jeff!

[1175]

Might I suggest SA spent a bit more time on fitment on the PR cars? It looks like the pictures Jeff displayed may be PR cars.

Just food for thought.

Jon

[J_Speegle]

Might I suggest SA spent a bit more time on fitment on the PR cars? It looks like the pictures Jeff displayed may be PR cars.....

The reason I posted "The following are all from the same car. Don't know if the car is typical, prepped or cherry picked for the photoshoot" for the last group. At least white car was not a PR car but one at a dealership

[JD]

Yes, welcome to '67 Shelby fiberglass "quality" parts.

Filling is an option, yes the question is how much to make it look better in this age of much better than when new and that you can live with vs still having it look like a real Shelby.   

[427heaven]

JD you are spot on. The question is what is your tolerance for crooked , poor fitting , sloppy workmanship of ANY part on your car. Many will go out of their way to make their cars kind of sloppy because that's the way they came. I see things differently from my side of the fence and would much prefer to have all my panels alignment and fitment to be much more appealing to the eye. My body guys spent many, many hours to get the fitment of my hood and deck lid parts to fit what would be todays standard, it puts a smile on my face when people see the car and say... man those pieces fit really nice on your car. Making a car better then they were is a no harm no foul in my book. Same with the paint , I was asked do you want fish eyes , orange peel , and some drips in your paint? I was perplexed when they said that and asked WTF would I want that for ? Because they were like that from the beginning... certainly not was my response, and very happy about not going back 50 years with the processes of the day.

[Bob Gaines]

JD you are spot on. The question is what is your tolerance for crooked , poor fitting , sloppy workmanship of ANY part on your car. Many will go out of their way to make their cars kind of sloppy because that's the way they came. I see things differently from my side of the fence and would much prefer to have all my panels alignment and fitment to be much more appealing to the eye. My body guys spent many, many hours to get the fitment of my hood and deck lid parts to fit what would be todays standard, it puts a smile on my face when people see the car and say... man those pieces fit really nice on your car. Making a car better then they were is a no harm no foul in my book. Same with the paint , I was asked do you want fish eyes , orange peel , and some drips in your paint? I was perplexed when they said that and asked WTF would I want that for ? Because they were like that from the beginning... certainly not was my response, and very happy about not going back 50 years with the processes of the day.

It is a good thing that fish eyes and to a lesser extent paint drips are not typical in factory paint jobs. My concern would be working with someone who thought that was typical from the factory and what else they didn't know.

[Bossbill]

To be fair I did pull out some filler that appeared original on the pax side (under original paint) so the fit was a bit better than currently displayed. Closer to the driver's side but still drawing attention to a gap as seen in the painted car pic.

I think I'll make it match the driver's side -- a compromise.

The panel gap on the fenders, doors, and quarters is actually very nice.

[JD]

To be fair I did pull out some filler that appeared original on the pax side (under original paint) so the fit was a bit better than currently displayed. Closer to the driver's side but still drawing attention to a gap as seen in the painted car pic.

I think I'll make it match the driver's side -- a compromise.

The panel gap on the fenders, doors, and quarters is actually very nice.

All the Ford San Jose panels ;-)

[owenkelley]

My hood and nose fit fairly decently, but my deck lid fits horribly to the end caps. I didn't want to fix it when I painted the car because they were original parts and that's just the
  way they fit. A body man buddy of mine who owns both a'67 and '68 Shelby didn't agree with me. He said if it was his he would have to fix it. To each his own I guess....You can see in the picture that the spoiler area actually leans in toward the front of the car more than the end caps, so from the sides it looks pretty bad.