Hood now stays open but misaligned

Paulaner

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Hello again...sorry in advance for another nube question, but I just replaced my hood spring support brackets, but my hood is now a little misaligned, slightly cockeyed to the left toward the passenger side. Any recommendations on realigning the gaps?
I'v been dicking with the positioning of bracing arms for the last couple hours and can't figure it out.

I did not remove the entire hood during the parts swap so the two main hinges at the front were never touched.
 

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Such a shift isn't strange without touching the front hinges; just a hair of play in those hinges already gives such frredom.

Seeing the larger gap on the driver's side, would lead me to believe that the hood is pushed to the opposite side by the Left side hinge arm being connected to far rearward (towards the front window)
Or, likewise, the hood is pulled (not pushed) to the passenger side as the right side hinge arm is connected to far to the front of the car.

Which one to correct would be visible when looking at the gap at the front; that's skewed as well ofcourse, but the gap width should be about 6-8 mm or so (tech manual has the values, I'm not 100%sure).
Thus, if you're seeing 4mm near the leading edge hinge driver side, and 10mm on the leading edge hinge pass side, then both arms need adjustment, drivers side a 'tad' back, and passenger side same 'tad' forward.

Now looking at your pics, I see that moving the left bolt on the fender further back isn't possible; it's already maxed out (isn't the leading edge gap in the left front corner too small now?).
Anyway it means that the right side is to far backwards (to the window). I'd set the right side a tad more backeards, and see if it helps. If the gap at the leading edge gets parallel, but too large, then you could possibly slide em both a tad towards the front.

Sticking a temporary tape with distance marks on the fender bracket will help you understand what's going on. There's quite a bit of force, you may see that the bolt on the fender slides if not tightened well. If that happens it'll be in the last inchea of closing the hood: you can't see it sliding when it happens, but you can now spot that it happened after opening the hood again.
I'm guessing here, but the shape of the hood and the locations of the leading edge hinges give me the feeling that moving the bolt on the fender 1 increment, will enlarge/decrease the side gap near the windscreen/grille by ~3 times that incement. So be gentle, and accurate in your adjustments.

Oh, and do all this without the hood catches used. Only if the hood sits right, then start the same fuss with those catches
 
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