Shims
 

My truck was wrecked sometime throughout its life. It’s had a hood, fender and door replaced. It has welded in rockers and not a straight line or gap anyplace. I’m going to try and fix that this winter. I ordered cab mounts and I plan to start with the bed being centered on frame, then center the cab on frame and to the bed, work forward. I need some help! I need shims, probably fender shims and probably shims for cab mounts and core mounts. Does anyone have any info on a good supplier? Also any advice anyone has, I would love to have. Last, my hood sits really high in the back. I can physically push it back down when the hood is closed but hate doing that every time. Is that a sign of wore out springs? Any any info on that?

Re: Shims
 

You can buy good shims or cheap junk on Amazon, depending upon your budget either will do.

As to your hood hinges, if everything is out of whack on that truck they might just need adjusting. Replacement is not difficult or very expensive, but before you replace them give it a try, here is a thread.

Re: Shims
 

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What you need to do to lower the back of the hood is to loosen the bolts that hold the hinge to the fender (only enough so that the hinges will move) and have a helper push up on the front of the hood while you tighten the bolts. This rotates the hinges back, raising the front of the hinge and lowering the rear. This will lower the hood in the back. Sometimes you can leave the front bolts snugged up and just loosen the rear two and get enough adjustment and sometimes you can't.. You need to be very careful when you close the hood after doing this in case you moved it too much or the hinges did not move evenly, side to side. Have your helper watch the rear and one side while you watch the front and the other side.

If the hinges are worn it generally won't change how high the hood sits by more than a fraction of an inch, unless they are about ready to fall apart. I have never seen a vehicle with this style hinge that you couldn't put the hood lower than the fenders if you wanted to. There is a lot of adjustment with these hinges. That is one of the things that makes it easy to align the panels.

If you put new rubber bumpers on the inside lip of the fenders where the hood closes, some of the replacement bumpers are a lot thicker than the originals and will hold the hood up, so check that also....

LockDoc

Re: Shims
 

I get the shims at NAPA. Get some of different thickness.

Re: Shims
 

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I used whatever I found at HD or Lowes.

-klb