Have any of you folks had any issues with hoods constantly contacting the wiper motor cowl when you open the hood? I've tried every configuration of hood alignment I can think of, and the hood hits the cowl; thus chipping the fiberglass. Also, my hood is very hard to lift up (like the hinges are rusty) Is this common on 1991's? Anybody have any good suggestions that may fix this before I drop the $$ on another hood? Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

Is it contacting the leading edge of the cowl itself, or the openings of the wiper post? If it's the wiper post you're referring to, you're opening the hood too far. Even though there's an opening for the hood prop rod towards the lower part of the hood as you open it, you're not supposed to open it that far.

1st hole or 2nd hole only.

If it's the leading edge you're referring to, I'm kinda stumped.

 

Yeah. It's definitely the forward section on the cowl. It almost seems as if the hood is concave towards the back, but it meets perfectly with the seal. I'm stumped as well with this one. Thanks for the reply.

 

Move the cowl to the rear.

 

Mine was rubbing the cowl and cowl was broken when I got it. Is the cowl loose or broken Ned the center? All I did was slide my hood forward some and changed the cowl. No problems now.

 

I tried the same thing. I even wedged some cardboard in between the cowl and the hood in hopes that the metal may conform, but still hits. It looks like my hood is flexing abnormally where the bolts mount to the hinge,, and the hood takes quite a bit to actually push up. Are they hinges fairly easy to replace on this thing? sorry it's my first xj. If so, I may just get a different hood and some hinges from the junk yard when I get back from deployment thanks again for the advice.

 

Pics would definitely help us get a better idea man, but right now, I'm thinking along the lines of what Turbo is saying. It's a bit of a *****, but loosening the screws for the cowl and moving IT back. Or were you saying you tried that already?

 

I just went through this, but it was caused by a front end impact. There are several adjustment points on the hood alignment. There are spacers under both hinge mount points. These can be used to raise the hood to get more clearance. Next is to raise the hood and loosen the bolts that mount the hinge to the hood. The mount holes on the hinge are oval and have adjusting room forward or back. Pull up on the hood on each side and tighten the mounting bolts. Do that on each side. If that fails, you can do what I did and make the oval holes in the hinge slightly bigger to give more adjustment room for clearance. I only needed to make them 1/16" bigger, then did as I described above.
The cowl cover should be flush with the leading edge of the metal cowl. You can loosen the mounting screws and push it up towards the windshield, but I doubt that's your problem.
I fiddled around with this for a few weeks before I ended up with this solution/ LEt me know if any other pics would help.

 

Great advice guys! I will try making making a bit of extra clearance room in the hinges, and moving the cowl. hopefully that makes a difference. I appreciate all of the input.

 

on my 90 wheeler rig, i added spacers to the hood to raise the back up about a half inch to help to let the heat escape. that one now doesn't hit the cowl.
but yeah, my hinges are so freakin stiff, i don't need no stinking prop rod. but lowering it requires my to hang off it like a funky monkey just to get it down.

my 99 has the problem where it contacts the plastic. i have to hold the hood up a bit, walk around to the drivers side and press down on the cowl so the hood clears. i've replaced 2 cowls so far and this one is cracked too. i have used a pry bar to bend up the hood at the contact point, worked for a bit but catches now.
this hood looks like it has flipped up once before as it has little dents from the wiper arms. i thought that was the main culprit, but clearly not.

i would pull the hood and use a dremel tool to elongate the holes in the hinges to get a little bit of adjustment back.

 

I shifted the alignment forward on the hood and then cranked up on the middle with the claw of my hammer... 👀

 

Why did you do that? Welcome to Cherokeeforum Joshua Tyree!

 

Thanks!! Glad to be here! The hood was still impacting the cowl after adjusting it towards the grill, and someone has obviously opened the hood too far and smooshed in the top of the hood with the windshield wiper assembly previously. So I thought maybe a little vertical movent could be beneficial. It clears the cowl now! ^^ Will add pics later.