I'm in the process of lining up my doors and front fenders getting ready for paint. My problem is that my gaps between my fenders and doors are not uniform. My panels are near perfect as far as panel to panel and body seam to body seam, but my gaps seam to run closer together at the middle of the door and fender. At the top and bottom they are equal,about1/4"-5/16",but in the center of the doors and fenders the gap is only 1/8". I am using a set of NOS fenders along with my old doors which are near mint. Is this a normal problem or am I being to picky. Any ideas? :confused:

Is the header and hood on? It sounds like both fenders need to move towards the center of the car in the front.

I don't think you are getting picky. You are just looking at the finer details of building a car. I’m doing body work on my car and I want it to have nice and even gaps and level panel to panel fit when it gets done and while I never really looked close as to how the gaps were before I took it apart (and also considering it was a mass produced assembly line built car) I am addressing those area’s now like you. I want mine to be better than what the factory made.
I had a problem on my fender to door gap but only at a top edge where it looked like the metal on either the fender or door was not long enough before it was bent back around the inner frame work and what I did was to get out the welder and put some weld buildup on the edge. The gap at the lower part of the door, the middle of the door and the upper middle top was even it was just at the very top where it got wider. I could have closed the very top by adjusting it tighter but then that would have throw off the other areas and not be even so that’s why I added material from my welder.
If I would have had a tight gap in the middle (but would taper wider evenly to the top and bottom) then I would think that was how the fender or door skin was stamped and it was probably within a certain tolerance for the time. To try and correct that problem I would try tapping the fender lip forward or the door edge lip backwards but keeping an eye on not buckling out the skin. I would not try grinding or filing (by using a flat file) the gap wider unless the tapping would not correct the problem as grinding will thin the skin of the fender or the door. If tapping the gap wider or grinding or filing the gap wider is not feasible or something you would not want to do then could the whole fender be shifted forward (and not throw off other panel alignments like the cowl and hood) to where now you have the right gap in the middle of the door but the top and bottom is too wide and you could get out the welder and add material to close the gap to match the middle of the door ?.
I know on mine, and I’m not done yet, that body work takes time and addressing the little details like gaps takes even more time but it does show on the finished product.
You may also want to do a search for some posts by Martinsr about body work information. I believe he has posted in this forum and also in other Chevrolet sites. Reading his posts have helped me and others.
I think your user name says a lot and I too feel obssessed with getting things right sometimes.
Jim

Thanks guys, I'm fairly new to the body work business. I do have the hood and header on and the seams on the hood to header and hood to fenders are near perfect. I'm not sure about the hammering part as I would hate to krinkle anything although am willing to give it a try and am not to sure about the welding although I can weld a little. I thought that maybe there was something I was missing as far adjustments. Thanks for your suggestions and I will see what happens graemlins/beers.gif

Originally posted by obseSSed:
I do have the hood and header on and the seams on the hood to header and hood to fenders are near perfect. I'm not sure about the hammering part as I would hate to krinkle anything although am willing to give it a try and am not to sure about the welding although I can weld a little. I thought that maybe there was something I was missing as far adjustments. Thanks for your suggestions and I will see what happens graemlins/beers.gif If you are unsure about hammering (and I would be too) and not sure about welding then maybe see if a person from a body shop can do it for you or someone that does good work as a hobbiest to get you going.
I had to sit down for a while and talk myself into cutting and sectioning the NOS quarters I had for my car. I had the doors hung and put on the new quarters to see how they fit and back by where the taillight panel was at the one side was between 3/16" to 1/4" too long. My neighbor had come over and I showed him what was up and he said that was probably the best they fit anyway. So luckily I had another rear section of the same make and model car outside and we looked at that and it was off just about that bad. We also talked and figured that the dies that punched out the panel might have been worn and I got one from the worn out dies. Who knows sometimes.
I knew I didn't want it to look that way so after a few beers and with going over all of the variables I decided to cut out a section to make it fit better to the taillight panel. Now I didn't do this right away that night but the next night I bit the bullet and cut the quarters. After I had the tail portion of the quarter cut off I then took my time seeing how much needed to be trimmed off of it and slowly worked on it until it fit right. After I had tacked it on and was happy to that point I completely welded it on. I then ground down the welds and after taking the time on the fitting and welding portion it took ever so little filler to make the work disappear. I could have been more detailed to where no body filler was used at all but I chose where I wanted to stop and am happy with that decission.

When I was blocking my quarters I had some high and low spots and I had to get out the body hammer and dolly to tap them out and with me not doing this everyday I hit it lightly to start with and then checked my work so I didn't make an innie an outie. The more I did, the better I got at it just like anything else I have to do.
If you are unsure about things, get help. Yes, it's nice to say that you did it all yourself but no one can do everything.

Jim