Having a heck of a time getting the tip of the "nose" of the driver's side of my hood to sit "flat". The tip sits 1/2 high. It will "push" down fairly easy but won't stay in place without pressure. The rest of the left side sits nice. Passenger side sits fine. Any ideas?

Photos would help. Photos showing the nose closed and also showing the underside of the area with the hood open would give us an idea of what's going on.

here a photo of it looking dead on. I'll try to get a photo from the passenger side with the drivers side closed.

That's not really that bad. The fit & finish on vehicles of that era was far short of what it is today. You should be the gaps on my 38.

My suspicion is the radiator “V” support rod needs tweaking and/or the radiator bolts and springs need adjustment. I am guessing both these are contributing to the issue. Judging from the one side being lower than the other I think I’d try adjusting the radiator bolts and spring. Adjusting the “V” rod, on the left side at the cowl could close that gap. Good luck!

thanks

Below are two pics of my 38's nose. One pre restoration and one post body work/pre final paint. As you can see fit and finish were not important. The fit between both sides of the hood is noticeably different, the errant side in my case is the passenger side. One might be able to get it closer with a lot of work but there's so much play in the design it's almost folly do even try without a complete redesign of the hardware. For example, with the hood half open on my 38 I have the ability to slide the hood half a good half inch forward or back on the hinge track. I imagine your 46 is similar.

I too believe “fit and finish” were less of a priority, even up into the 1980’s. But, a little tweaking as described above could improve the fit at least somewhat.

One other thing to check is to make sure the “V” rod is symmetrically shaped without any obvious non-factory original bends.

Hi Fig

Sorry I didn’t respond earlier. (been in the field)
Your hood should fit much better than that.
Pictures of the fits between the hood, the fenders, and the filler piece between the fenders and grill (with the hood latched down) might help.
You might be looking at something as simple as an adjustment to the latches that hold the hood down.

I’m including a picture of the nose of my ’46.
It’s about as original and unmolested as they get, right down to the original paint, so the fit is probably about what you got from the factory.
Hope this helps. :-)

That does fit well! Thanks for sharing.