My 1984 944 has a bad front end, the panel gaps are completely off and nothing fits right.

I have adjusted the headlights to fit differently and the passenger side headlight is always different from the driver side because the driver side one won’t go far enough forward. In the pictures I have the driver side headlight in the farthest forward position it will go as the bolt slots aren’t any longer. The passenger one is near the back of the slots and seems to fit about the same as the driver side one.

The nose panel is off of an 85.5-88 car since it is bolted in rather than welded. I have tested putting another nose panel on also off of an 86 and it fits exactly the same. Both nose panels are off of na cars. It appears that the gap is too large at the top of the panel perhaps as well as it sticks up higher but overall looks like it is fine.

Despite the carfax report I am fairly certain my car has been in an accident being that the nose panel is off of a different car and the passenger fender is a different colour.

Does anyone have an idea of what to do? I have spoken to body shops and they want nothing to do with the car so I am looking to hopefully find a solution myself. my hood is also slightly bent but it doesn’t looks like that would be an issue.

do early 944 nose panels fit differently than late ones? Is there a reason why my headlights might be asymmetrical? Has anyone had a similar issue?

 

If it bothers you that much i would first of all have a look at the book… in the back of the “ body” section you can find measurements.. id start with that.. make sure you have a good square “ base” to work with. After that you will have to mess around with the hood.. the hood goes up/down fore/ aft with BOTH ends of the hinges. Although the hinge to body never really gets moved, but thats not to say the hinge itself isnt tweaked. Ok so now the hood is good. Panel gaps good on both sides with respect to the fenders.. the nose should be put on and fit..square with the hood and good gaps.. if not figure out why.. sometimes the shelf that it rests on gets bent from maybe a deer hit at one point? Then comes the most fidgety challenge of it all.. the headlights. They can move up and down with the slotted holes .. they are also capable of left and right with shims from the factory. To fit these takes hours of trial and error.. it can be done but it is tedious work. Im sure the body shop knew this and thats why they didn't want anything to do with it.. I might suggest joining pca and finding the “944 guy” in the club who has experience with it. The club is always a great resource. Anyhow.. one thing to remember when doing this. A german car has little to no variation on the size of the stamping of parts..if something doesn't fit properly its because something is bent/ mis-adjusted or shimmed improperly. Good luck!

 

Have you tried moving the hood back on the hinges? I have a similar problem as well. I think on my driver's side, we might have a bent hood hinge, or perhaps it needs to be repositioned as well. I did get a used hinge just in case..It doesn't appear bent, but a little bit can go a long way when it's magnified by the length of the hood. The early front nose panels are welded in, the later ones are bolted. I had to replace the nose panel, L front fender and the hood..the headlight covers on the driver's side have very little clearance between them and the hood, possibly even less than yours. To get the gaps to align, I may have to slot the upper fender holes to get the gap on that side to be correct. This is with my hood slid all the way back on the hinges. I may have to slot the holes on the new hinge as well...When you do this be careful about the gap between the rear of the hood and the windshield since there is a protrusion on the hood that comes close to it. HTHsome.

 

Looks like that the headlight bucket rods need to be shimmed to get the gaps correct left to right..To make the inside bolts easier to access, you may want to remove the upper radiator hold-down arms..that will help with the bottom bolts on the 3 cornered washer..I may have to go in, and slot those holes as well to get the bucket assembly moved forward to improve the gap situation between the hood and the headlight bucket. Time for the Dremel and a carbide bit.

 

How would I go about shimming the bucket rods? Are those the rods coming directly out of the headlight that is attached via the slots?

 

Look at the PET. The shims are pre-made and are available from Auto Atlanta, or Pelican or Porsche..The shims go between the inner sheet metal and the pivot casting...Just loosen the bolts and insert the shims..they are slotted to accept the bolts. They have a finger tab that sticks out for insertion. They cost about 10.00 or so for a set of 4. Go to their website and insert Headlight shims in the search block..It ought to come right up...HTH some..BTW check out the U tube videos, especially Van Svenson's it shows the inner shims in those pics as well. When I speak of the inner sheet metal, I mean piece that runs across the width of the area underneath the nose panel with the air deflectors in it. The triangular? plate is bolted to that piece. On the other side of the sheet metal is the pivot casting for the headlight bucket. You may have to remove the nose panel to get access. Mine is off of a later car, so it is bolted at the bottom and the top..5mm studs on the bottom and 6 mm bolts (shank size) on the top. Good luck...

 

Thanks for the help everyone

 

Today I spent a long afternoon fighting the hood hinge on my driver's side. After removing the hinge and comparing it with the used one I recently got, I discovered that there are early and late hood hinges as well. They are not interchangeable. The earlier hinges have the body mount slotted vertically and the latter ones are slotted horizontally. So, prior to the re-install of the hinge I slotted the holes horizontally. That when the real fight began, wrestling with the hood, the hood support and getting all the holes re-aligned for the bolts. I sincerely recommend that if you decide to do this, have another person to assist standing nearby. After this was completed, I again lowered the hood, finding very little hood to headlight bucket clearance. So I went back to the large holes in the sheet metal with the airflow deflectors, and elongated the holes that supported the inner bucket hinge. That helped a lot, and now I have the proper gap between the hood and the headlight bucket. I used a dremel tool and slotted the 3 holes on the inner hinge about 1/8". I may have to shim the outer hinge a bit to give the proper gap next to the fender..HTH some