Cowl behind the hood

I need opinions here.   As some of you may or may not know, Brutus has already had his first accident and hasn't left the yard yet.  The town sent us a letter telling us to get rid of the parts truck and parts vic.  No way man, so we pushed them under the carport.  When we were pushing the parts truck under, Nick misjudged   The mash bars on Brutus are new to him and you really cant see them sitting in the driver seat, let along with the bug guard back on the front.  needless to say, CRUNCH!!.  so body work and a repaint on the new fender of all things.  Somewhere along the line, the hood got mis aligned and ended up getting stuck.  So pitch black, with a flash light, we had to dissassemble the front of the truck to get to it.  Long story short, the hood got popped.  The next day, Nick went out and started the truck and ran the ac and it started making a whole bunch of noise.  The leaves from the tree strike again, so many of them already got down into the cowl and got inside the blowr motor.  So cowl came off, got scrapped, needs to be repainted.  We found some heavy duty screen we are putting under there so this wont happen again.  This is something we had planned to do, but for some reason we forgot about.  Anyway.  When putting this thing back in, do you recommend taking the hood off or not?  This thing is a royal pain to get on and i'm thinking we should take it off, but then we have to go about the realigning.  Does anybody know a trick?

I think I'd remove the hood.

Sorry for your issues!

Yes, since there are two of you go ahead and remove the hood.  And if you already have it lined up put a line around the hinge where it hits the hood.  That will get you really close on the alignment.

You might try drilling a (1/8"?) hole through both the hinge and inner hood before removing.
Then you can use a punch to line up and help support the hood as you tighten the bolts, much like an ironworker uses his wrench tail when erecting steel.

If the punch fits, the hood has to go back on exactly as it was.

Use a cowl grille from an '87-'91 - they have small round holes instead of slots, so leaves and needles don't fall through and into the blower, and leaves won't collect and cause so much rust in the cowl.

Yea the one on the 88 parts truck is all mangled up, was hopeing to be able to use it.  Jim, thats a good idea about the punch, i think we may do that.  We had already discussed scribing lines where the hing lines up with the hood.  think we may go ahead and do both just to be safe.

Ive found it really helps when trying to tighten down the bolts.
Keeps the washer biting down from twisting the hinge out of position.

I also use my little cordless impact gun with a socket adapter.
MUCH easier to hold steady than trying to swing a ratchet.

What do you have to do to get the cowl off? Where does it bolt up. If I could ever find a 88-91 cowl I wouls swap mine but may do the mesh anyway because I am in pine needle country. So much junk in my cowl.

First  remove the windshield wipers by lifting the blade and sliding the pivot clip to the side.

Remove the radio antenna.

There are 5 phillips screws hidden in the slots by the base of the windshield.

Then, under the hood, there are a number of screws across the hood seal.

At this point the cowl should be free.
Getting it off requires some contortions with the hood in a halfway raised position to clear the hinges.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

At this point the cowl should be free.
Getting it off requires some contortions with the hood in a halfway raised position to clear the hinges.

"Contortions" is a euphemism for trying every possible position of the hood, chipping the paint, and thinking "Why didn't I take the hood off to do this?!?!"

What I eventually did was to loosen the bolts that hold the hinges to the hood and then slid the hood forward on the hinges.  And I loosened the bottom bolts more than the top to angle the hood on the hinges.

However, the hood wanted to close in those various positions, and I was worried about the bolts coming out, so I had to prop it up with a piece of wood from the radiator support.

I didn't find it that difficult

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we ended up pulling the hood forward and it slipped right in

Misinformation !!!!!  I just remembered, the lower windshield trim was off when I put the round hole cowl on.

Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up....My bad.  Bill

It's still not too difficult with the hood half up.
I don't think the hinges changed for Bricknose.

We got it on the first time with the hood halfway up and wasn't to difficult.  although it did scrape against the hood a few times, after we painted it we were going to take the hood off, but when after i got the bolts loose, i pulled the hood forward and it dropped right in