But the same principal. A block of wood in the right spot will straighten a tweaked hood quickly.
I worked at the Ford plant in the early seventies for a year and I'd watch the cars come down the line for final fit and inspection. The hoods, doors, trunk lids were sometimes way out of line and those guys had 2.5-3 minutes to get them done. They had a set of various wooden blocks and wedges and just bent whatever didn't match until it did. Once in a while they would loosen a bolt but most of it was just done with the blocks and bending. Course, after you've bent a few hundred cars a day for years, they could do it in thier sleep...
I have to tell you, I had been in the body business many years when I took my first tour thru an automotive assembly plant. It was the old GM plant building in Fremont, which had became "NUMMI" which basically was Toyota. I had been tweeking doors, trunks and hoods for years and thought it to be a little "trick" that was close to "hack", I don't know why but I thought it to be "cheating" to do this. I think because other bodymen had looked at it this way, don't know why I listened to them, I had figured out how to make the panel fit better, but I was doing something wrong?
I just thought it was cheating that's all. Anyway, I was in the NUMMI plant and was blown away to see them using all MY tricks on the final assembly! :thumbup: The doors of the car were coming to the assembled car right at the end of the line, assembled door coming down to the car off an overhead conveyer right at the very end of the line. As they bolted the doors on, checking fit, they took large hammers with a blunt chisel like device and WHACKING the striker to get it moved a small amount for perfect alignment, they had a block of rubber on the end of a handle they stuck in the doors hinge closing the door on it to tweek the hinge like I show in my "Sprung door repair" thread, I was blown away at the mount of twisting and bending they did to the doors for the final fit, one of the best in the industry I must say.
And shouldered bolts, I would remove the shouldered bolts on late model cars to be able to move the door, trunk, or hood a bit and I had guys saying "you can't do that", sure enough right in the Toyota panel installation guidelines it had to remove the shouldered bolts for better alignment! LOL
Yep, bending and tweeking for perfect fit is HOW you align, it isn't cheating, it's knowing the tricks of the trade.
I wish this guy worked at the shop where I work to do the final fit. NOTHING ticks me off more than poor fit on a panel where perfect fit was RIGHT THERE for the taking. But instead they let the customer find that the door is dragging or something and THEN they fix it. Of course spending WAY too much time because they haven't a clue how to do it!
Brian