fender alignment help

[Mater]

ok i must be doing something wrong here as i feel like i am using way to many shims and the door still hits the center of the fender when i go to open it

so what am i doing wrong here? none of these parts are original to this car if that helps they are original sheet metal though and not new stuff

[Loren]

Hard to help much from here but...

First, is the door aligned to the body? Rear gap even as seen from the side, in-line as seen from sighting down, i.e. it can't be leaning out a little at the top and leaning in a little at the bottom or vice versa, and parallel to the rocker both as seen from the side and looking down, i.e. a straight-edge crossing the gap between the door and rocker sits flat, the whole way down the door from the rear to the front. If those gaps are good then the proximity of the front upper door to the a-pillar area should be reasonable.

Only then can the fender can be aligned to the door. Start by checking that the fender at the door gap is indeed the same profile as the front of the door as seen by sighting down the side, the fender could be bent in or out and have to be tweaked around a little with some hand force.

Then adjust the fender up-down with the stacked shims near the hood hinge, close is good enough for temporary. Then the shims at the bottom near the rocker. If the gap is even or can be made even as seen from the side (the radiator support where the fender front bolts on may need some shimming off the frame), you should not have that door-hitting problem. Some times panel alignment means a lot of tweaking on the actual panel, not just shim adjustment. And those old GM full-frame or F-X subframe cars can use a lot of shims.

[Mater]

i think the issue is the door




i completely slipped my mind that the rear quarters where swapped out which would through off the door striker which would mess with the door

looks like i need to adjust the door first. seems to need to go up and out at the top and in at the bottom


now need to figure out how to move the striker over as it seems it has no adjustment at all

[anotheridiot]

after we replaced quarters, we ended up needing to make a cut a the door jam edge on the quarter, grind out between 1/8th and 1/4 and push the outer quarter panel in to ever get the door lined up. That at least lets the door striker get moved in so the door is not angled out.

Replacement fenders we needed to cut at the center and increase the bend and then push the bottom back out again.