Bonnet Alignment Revisited

[Nickp_S2]

I've run into the dreaded alignment problem myself recently and having scoured the threads about this in the past I notice that there are none which cover what I'm having a problem with.

I noticed that the passenger side hinge bolt was very loose when doing some minor maintenance and thought I'd tighten it up thinking that this may be the reason the front end of the car made a noise every time I hit even a small bump in the road.

Sure enough this did correct the noise but had the side effect of causing the bonnet and wing to rub badly where they meet on the drivers side.

The bible (and all the threads I've read in here) say nothing about the tightening of the actual bolt into the hinge itself (the horizontal bolt that goes into the hinge on the chassis). They only mention vertical and horizontal adjustmets.

Anyone have any experience of this?

[NickP_S2]

Okay I think I've managed to suss getting the hinge bolts in and the bonnet centred correctly. However, this brings me back to the original problem that I had, the noise of the bonnet hinge hitting the bolt every time I go over a bump.

There seems to be quite a lot of play between the hinge and bolt due to the difference in size between the bolt and the hinge tube. Is this normal?

[NicBowman]

Hi - The bolt should have two locking nuts, one on each side of its slot in the chassis. You can therefore lock the bolt in the correct projecting position. You should then have the bonnet bit at the end of the bolt, holding the boonet at the correct position, (obviously the same applies both sides). There should be a plane bit of bolt left between the chassis and the bonnet bit. If you cut a bit of heater hose to the right length to cover the exposed bolt, slit it and fit it on with some ziplocks, this should stop the bonnet wnadering around, and hopefully the noise? Seemed to work for me.


Nic