My 1969 Cougar’s hood rattles up and down as I drive down the road. The braces underneath don’t seem to be snug to the outer skin. A few people have suggested that I fill the gap between the hood skin and the braces with the expanding foam that they use on houses. I’m thinking that’s just going to cause a lot of squeaks and if it creates other issues, will be impossible to remove.
How do the professional body shops deal with this?
Did you check to see if your latch is out of adjustment? I don’t think your outer skin could be that loose from the inner structure? And,NO,No to the spray foam!!!
Mine is the same way. The latch/bumper adjustment is a little off, but the skin is detached from the bracing on the passenger’s side and causes it to bounce a bit when driving. I don’t see any signs of WHERE it would have been attached, but it is definitely loose as Jim describes.
Thinking about it, my car has had some front end damage at least once in its life, I wonder if that stretched the metal on the hood and now that excess length is what is causing the issue … looks fine just sitting there, but washing the car or driving it you see it move.
If you were to use something, it would/should be auto body panel adhesive.
From the factory they just used some seam sealer between the outer skin and inner structure. Most likely yours has dried out and is no longer there to take up the gap to keep it from vibrating going down the road.
A retired Body Mechanic told me to try put some shims in between the inner brace and the outer skin. That got rid of most of the flex but some of the shims are almost 3/4" thick. I would like to find a permanent solution that looks right. I don’t think seam sealer will do the trick because the gap is too big and seam sealer is flexable. The factory only put 5 dabs of some kind of adhesive/sealer/caulking? Only one of the 5 dabs is between the inner brace and the outer skin. The other 4 completely missed the target. The stuff is pretty hard and holds great. That’s the stuff I would like to try. Anyone know what the factory used?
Try SEM part no. 39357. This is a modern version similar to what was used when your hood was made.