Pre A Hood Seal

[Spencer Harris]

After replacing all the front-end sheet metal on #60238 (8/17/53) I'm prepping to drill the holes for the hood seal and the metal, reinforcing corner plates when I ran across this bit of information on page 124 of Ron Roland's excellent "Restored by Hand" book:

"...early cars (1950 to 1953) have a smaller (reinforcing corner) plate with only three screws. On earlier cars with the three screw plates, the seal has a front and rear piece and these are joined half way down both sides with a separate, small, two-screw aluminum plate..."

I've scoured the 53 and 55 parts books, but find no mention of a 3-hole corner plate. The 54 and 56 workshop manuals show identical descriptions and photos of a 4-hole plate.

Does anyone know when the transition from 3-hole plates to 4-hole plates took place - model year, chassis number or approximate date? Sounds like the smaller corner plates and two-screw aluminum plates would probably be easy enough to fabricate, but I'm hoping they switched to four-hole plates when they switched to one-piece windshields

[Donald Zingg]

Spencer,

Sorry I cannot answer your question, but FYI - -
Tim Goodrich sells an exact repro of the rubber hood seal 356.52.811
just in case you need one

Don

[James Davies]

Well, the 1953 hood seal is definitely one-piece with the seam at the passenger side rear corner under the plate, and the corner plates are the normal 4-screw variety, based on my car (plates and holes). And early '53 unrestored cars show the seam on the passenger side.

[Spencer Harris]

Well, the 1953 hood seal is definitely one-piece with the seam at the passenger side rear corner under the plate, and the corner plates are the normal 4-screw variety, based on my car (plates and holes). And early '53 unrestored cars show the seam on the passenger side.

Thanks James. We were very careful to mark the screw hole positions on the new hood before replacing the nose panel, fenders and gutters, this just startled me to read "1950 - 1953" cars in Mr. Rowland's book. My original cowl side gutter shows the four holes as well, but one can't be too sure.

[Jim Karaba]

Interestingly, on the '53 I restored (50584) there were no screw holes except at the two back corners for the 4 hole plates. The entire run of the hood seal channel was original to the car but there were no screw holes. The hood seal was glued in place. The entire car was stripped to the metal and still had its original sheetmetal (never any clips changed). I ran my hand under the entire run and could not feel any evidence of old screw holes either, just smooth metal. Has anyone ever seen this before? It was a 53 1300 normal coupe.

[Alan Hall]

Jim, That is exactly how my '53 Cab was done also.

[Mike Smith]

Well, the 1953 hood seal is definitely one-piece with the seam at the passenger side rear corner under the plate, and the corner plates are the normal 4-screw variety, based on my car (plates and holes). And early '53 unrestored cars show the seam on the passenger side.

Yes,Yes Yes! I know we drive on the wrong side of the road BUT - James can we talk Left and Right - otherwise it confuses 50 plus Other Countries

[James Davies]

Ha! Sorry about that Mike. I'll try to be clearer and use Left and Right.

Don't get me started on the front and back of the engine. =)

[Mike Smith]

Don't get me started on the front and back of the engine. =)

Nor Me

[Mike DeJonge]

1952 coupe also had no screw holes for the hood seal running down the length to the front. 4 holes in each corner for the corner pcs were there

[Mike DeJonge]

1953 coupe, vin # 50239 also has no screw holes on the sides and front for the hood seal. only 4 holes for screws in the corners for the metal retainer