Hood rod/latch/catch operation

[Stinger]

How is the hood latch/catch supposed to work?  On the drivers side mine works fine with almost no effort.  I can see that the when the handle is turned the rod ends turn up inside the catches mounted on the front and back of the inner fender.  On the passenger side, it is difficult to turn the handle and the rod goes up and over the catch and the back one seems to bind up.  The catch (bracket thing) on the front end was adjustable up and down.  I was able to adjust it so that the rod goes up inside of the catch like it is supposed to but the back one is not adjustable.  There is enough pressure on that back catch that the metal is actually starting to tear at the top bolt.  seems to me that if I could just raise that back one up a quarter inch, that it would work properly.  Are both front and back supposed to be adjustable?  If so, where can I buy an adjustable catch?

[Tooljunkie]

Remove catch and slot the mounting holes in sheet metal. 
mine took some tweaking, i recall having to bend the catches to align with the latch. 

[ggdad1951]

One thing to help is to watch from the other side to see what needs to be done.

[Tooljunkie]

On 4/25/2023 at 8:13 AM, ggdad1951 said:

One thing to help is to watch from the other side to see what needs to be done.

Exactly! And mimic what the working side does. 

[Desotodav]

It may be possible for you to slightly bend or twist the metal rod so that it better aligns with the catch? Seemed to work with mine.

[Stinger]

Thanks guys for the tips.  A little adjustment here and there and it is working fairly well now.

[JBNeal]

I've run into the problem while driving on the local lumpy back roads with the '48 and '49 that getting the hood sides to open or close was a little tricky.  I could get everything adjusted and lined up just right, then when I need to look under the hood to see how things are going under there, I could unlatch, but one or both sides would hang on the hook, so I'd have to reach under there and finagle the rod off of that hook.  When closing, the rod would bang into the hook, so I would have to reach under there and squeeze the rod closer to the hood edge to get the hood to close, then the hood would latch tight on the hooks.  I would check to see if there was a problem right away, and the hood would open and close easily...until the next few hundred miles down the road, and the hood would be all wonky again.  Since perfection is a myth, I just learned to deal with it and roll on 

[Stinger]

Ha. Great description.  I think that is what is happening with mine.  You would think that Southwrn California would have great roads since we don’t get snow or ice, but the potholes here are the worst I have seen and I have lived and driven all over the country.