How to measure air breather to hood clearance

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I'm planning on installing a 1/2" phenolic spacer between intake manifold and carburetor, but need to make sure I have enough clearance for air breather. Before purchasing spacer, what's the trick to measure clearance with hood closed? There must be some creative ways to accomplish this.

Thanks for any help,

Rob

 

[bronconut73]

If you have kids.....play doh works great too.

 

[pbwcr]

Make a cone of soft plumber putty with a sandwich bag plastic on top of the cone to prevent it from sticking to the hood. Play stuff might not be as good?

 

[brianstrange]

Another tip is using your smart phone, and record a clip from the inside. It helps when something is barely hitting, and you need to figure it out.

 

[JAFO]

Put a block of wood on the engine and then slam the hood. Then remove the hood, flip it over and using a depth micrometer and a precision level laid across the dent, measure down into the dent using the depth micrometer. This should get you within a few thousandths.

But the plumbers putty sounded pretty good too.

 

[pcf_mark]

A wad of bread works too! Play Doh or electrician's putty is the best.

 

[Steve83]

JAFO's is quick & easy, but if you prefer slow & complex...

Lower the hood slowly until it just rests on the obstruction. Measure the height of the hood lip above its closed position. Measure the distance (parallel to the truck's axis) from the hood hinge line (which is perpendicular to the axis) to the obstruction, and to the hood lip. Multiply the hood height x the obstruction distance, and divide by the lip distance to get the obstruction height above the bottom of the closed hood.

If the breather doesn't hit the hood, put something on top that WOULD hit, and use the method above. Then subtract the above result from the object's height to get the hood clearance at the surface the object was resting on.

 

[blubuckaroo]

A ball of plumbers putty.

 

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Great stuff! All fine ideas, perhaps not the slamming the hood on a block part. ;D I'll try a couple.

Many thanks