How far apart should my front struts be?
 

My hood on my 78SC Targa is making contact with the driver's side fender and actually chipping the paint. This car was hit once on that side, but that was a while ago and this problem didn't happen until well after repairs from that accident.

I'm wondering if the shock towers are collapsing towards the middle and driving the fender towards the hood under load. The seam between the two body parts is close at rest, but not touching. I have a weltmeister strut support (the one that's just a single straight bar) installed, and I've considered adjusting it to push the top of the shocks apart, but clearly this is going to change the geometry of the car.

Is there a spec on how far apart the tops of the shocks should be? Or is that only done by way of a camber alignment?

Hows the gap on the other side? Could be a case of grabbing the whole hood while its part way open open and wrenching it sideways to even up the gaps. (That assumes the hood is parallel with the rear cowl section and not twisted on the mounts.) If wrenching sounds a bit forceful, try 'manipulating sideways with some determination and vigour"

Post up some pics of the hood to fender gaps, damaged areas etc. I seriously doubt the strut towers are collapsing inwards. The car would be so obviously weak and out of whack (technical term) there's no way you could drive it.
In a former life I was a AutoBody painter and I saw and repaired seriously damaged metal. So it sounds like one of the following scenarios might be plausible:

A) front end was knocked out of spec and the repair shop didn't put it on a proper frame rack and pull it back square/in spec again. That shop just covered the out of alignment issue with fender to hood realignment.

B) front end was pulled back square by the repair shop but they didnt properly set the fender - door and hood gaps, now your fender and or hood needs to be properly realigned.

C) something else is going on but we need detailed focused pictures of the entire front end to take a shot at spotting something out of whack (technical term) ;) over the Internet.

I would suggest taking some good pictures of the trunk/strut tower area and inner body panels, as well as under the front of the car - torsion bars and A-arm areas.

Post them up. Also poke around under there looking for rust. Small pick works well as you know undercoating, paint and dirt have been known to hide a multitude of sins. See if you find any soft spots that shouldn't be soft.

Take lots of pics

Report back!

Btw. There is a thread that has every measurement for aligning body panels as well as structural areas. I think the spec sheet was used with a Colette (sp?) bench. It's got all the measurement you need. Do a search.

Good luck.
J