92 YJ, Hood Alignment and gaugues..

[bikr]

So I just got my hands on a 1992 YJ a few months ago. The thing had been in a front end accident with a tailgate lowered pickup truck. The grill was pushed back and buckled the driver side fender. The hood fender and grille all needed to be replaced.

I replaced all of the parts and it looks good but the hood just doesn't sit right. My guess is the bucket got tweaked enough to cause everything to just get misaligned. Is bucket straightening a reality? Can most body shops pull something like this off? Can I do it with a come-a-long and some patience. haha..

My other question is all of a sudden "zip" all of my gaugues are dead, including my odometer. Is this a fuse issue, <--can't find a blown fuse, but who knows.. Or is there an inline fuse? Plug somewhere that might have dislodged?

Let me know what you guys think.. Thanks so much!

 

[fireman32]

If you can send an upclose picture of the damage that would help.
The hinges could be bent if you didn't replace them or the front end could be torqued to the left side a bit. It doesn't take much for a hood to be misaligned. A reputable body shop should be able to fix it with no problem.

 

[black87yj]

my 87 has one of those flimsy circuit type wiring for the gauges. the guy that sold it to me said the gauges just died one day. i took out the cluster and sanded all the contacts and all have worked fine ever since. about an hours worth of pain n suffering .

 

[redrooster]

I'm not sure what you mean by bucket. Loosen all the bolts for the hood hinges, fenders and grill but don't take them out. Push, pull and bump all the body panels into place before re tightening the bolts.

 

[bikr]

I apologize for the word bucket, I meant tub.. I was able to get it a bit closer to true by loosening the hood bolts and hanging the hinge back straight (it was bent up a bit from the crash).

It's straight now but the hood is still ever so slightly tweaked to the driver side (driver side of hood is pushed further in towards the tub than passenger side).

I may have to drill out the hinges a bit for some more play in them if I can't get the body fixed.

Sorry I haven't provided any pictures yet but I certainly will.

Thanks so much for the posts!

--Josh

 

[bikr]

Ok.. So I was able to snap one picture on the way to work this morning. Here is kinda what I'm talking about.

As you can see in the picture, the tub is buckeled a little and it even threw the door alignment off (btw the door doesn't open at all anymore but I think that's this combined with a busted mechanism that I'll work on later..

Any clues how to fix something like this in the tub??? I think this is why my hood is jacked too...