Does your hood flutter?

[nicktheviking]

My hood flutters when I reach highway speeds. I know it is latched securely, but the corners seem to bounce a lot and it's distracting. Is this just typical of spiders? Do I need to adjust my latch? Should I look into hood pins?

[danaspider]

Does the latch line up when closing? Mine used to flutter until I adjusted the alignment. I am assuming you are talking of flutter at the corners near the passenger end of the hood. If at the front, are the hinges tight?

[So Cal Mark]

along with latch height adjustment, there should be a rubber pad in each corner of the cowl to support the hood

[Jazgeek]

yep... replace those rubber pad's.... yours are probably original and they've degraded in thickness over time.

I have a roll of 3/8 thick closed cell neoprene rubber at the office so I used 2 pieces glued together and stuck them on...

now no flutter.

[mdrburchette]

The edges could be a little bent from people opening the hood, too.

[rlux4]

Mine fluttered and drove me crazy! I tried everything: adjusted the latch, checked the hinges, put new rubber bumpers on, checked the alignment, nothing worked. It lined up with the fender and cowl perfectly, but still fluttered on the drivers side. I finally put two 1"X2" ceramic magnets on the cowl section under the hood and it stopped, even on rough roads. They don't touch the hood, but there's just enough attraction to keep it in place.
(click to enlarge)
Call it Mikey Mouse, maybe it is, but it works when nothing else would.
Ron

[73Spider]

along with latch height adjustment, there should be a rubber pad in each corner of the cowl to support the hood

I am missing those rubber pads. Anybody have a picture of where they go... and what dimensions are they?

[Tappy]

here they are

[73Spider]

Thanks Tappy. Anybody have 2 they want to sell? Or I will just fabricate my own. What are the actual dimensions for them?

[Danno]

i suppose any nice looking piece of 3m backed foam or something will work, right?

[mbouse]

they really aren't that expensive to purchase from Vicks... or was that IAP?

hey, ron... i am in the same boat. adjustments to the hinges don't help. tightening the lock didn't help. adding the pads didn't help where did you find magnets that big?

[ventura ace]

The Fiat vendors carry them (the rubber pads, not the magnets). I think I got mine form VIck's.

Alvon

[rlux4]

Mike, I got the magnets from Lowe's in the hardware dept. I use foam rubber for the pads and the hood is nice and snug and flush when it's closed but it was still fluttering. I had to try different locations for them until I found the spot where they don't touch the hood when it closes, but they're close enough to keep the hood still. They really work well. (There are two of them there.)
Ron

[mbouse]

will giver a try this weekend.

[ventura ace]

If the center of your hood lines up nicely with the WW cowl, but the outer edges are raised slightly (as mine was, probably due to lifting the hood from the side rather than lifting from the center), then the rubber pads under the side edges will not correct the flutter problem. To fix this problem, I carefully bent the hood so that the outer edges contacted tightly against the rubber pads when closed. This was a scary fix. To correct the raised outer edges, I put a somewhat deflated soccer ball in the center, under the latch, then asked my wife to help me with bending the 2 outer edges downward oh so slowly and carefuly. We had to reverse bend the hood quite a bit in order to make a difference, since the hood sheet metal is very springlike, and doesn't yield that easily. We probably had the center up in the air a good 6" or more, with the outer tips pushed all the way down to the cowl before it finally made a difference and flattened out the way it is supposed to be (and I thought it was going to end up with a big crease in the middle from having to bend it so far!!). Well, it worked. The hood flattened out nicely, the outer edges don't ride high any more, and no more flutter.

BTW, if you have the flutter problem, and don't do anything to fix it, you increase the problem with cracks up front where the hinges join the hood. All the constant fluttering is putting a reversing fatigue load on the hinge brackets, and will crack over time. This seems to be more of a problem with the early hoods. I think the later hoods are a little more beefy where the hinge mount joins the hood.

Alvon