I am trying to finish up my 69 Malibu restoration and have a passenger side front fender that bulges too far out compared to the door. It is at that point about 6" down from the top where the door is at it farthest point forward. I have seen this before and usually shimming the lower fender mount pulls it out. Unfortunately, in this case doing that causes the fender to appear much "longer" than the door - the lower body seam doesn't match and the fender hangs below the rocker 1/4". I really don't know how to proceed in this case and fender/door adjustments have always been a pain in the a*! anyway. Any suggestions on techniques I am missing?

You might try shimming the top of the fender up higher so that you don't have to add so many shims to the bottom of the fender.
Roger

Right, but then I end up with misalignment at the top of the fender which is more noticeable than at the rocker. I am wondering if the door edge needs to be forced out to matchup with the fender by whacking on the door frame a few times. I hate to do this unless some experienced bodyman indicates this is an acceptable approach that has worked in the past.

Is the fender a reproduction? Has the door ever been reskinned or repaired? Don't attach the fender with too much tension it may realign itself down the road. You may have to relief cut the inner brace and get it into alignment, with the wheel house out you will have access to tack weld it after alignment is good then remove from car and finish up the weld. Just a thought.

Eduardo, I had the opposite problem with my 66. My door was out further than the fender near the top and middle. I had to add shims to the fender mount near the door top hinge. Is it possible that you have too much shim there?

Tom

Bob - yes the fender is a repro. And before I read your reply I came to the same conclusion that some of the shape needed taken out of the fender. I slit the brace with a hacksaw and opened it slightly before tack welding it. The first trial fit was 10 times better than anything before so I welded up the brace and re-painted that part of the inner fender/brace. After about 20 minutes of minor adjustment it now looks excellent. My guess is that with too much curvature I was having to pull so hard that it created other problems. Now I have a shim in the bottom but it slips in and out with no pressure on it. I worked in a body shop 25 years ago for about 2 years but we never did any restoration work - it is much different than collision repair. Anyway, I thought that this approach may be radical but it turned out to be the right move and only took about 1 hour.