[roger1]

Originally Posted by will slow gto

Those are excellent gaps. I’d hesitate to add any metal to the doors or fenders. You’re still going to put several coats of primer and color which will shrink the apparent gaps even further. Plus you’ll have a darker color which seems to make the gaps less noticeable than lighter colors, IMHO.

My target for all the gaps is from 5/32" to 3/16". I won't let primer coats build up enough to allow them to get closer than 5/32". I can sand the primer off all the way back to metal before my final coat of primer if I need to. My final coat will be epoxy primer. I made the hood to fender gaps 3/16" and won't let those get closer. I installed the 4 rubber wedges that go on the sides of the fender during this process and found that it's better to keep the gap at 3/16" to allow those to fit and not push the hood up.

I'll show better photos of the one area where I will build up metal to close the gap. It's needed between where I have place the shims all the way to the top. You can see it's pretty wide in that top section. It's just right from the shims down to the bottom.



This is the only place that is more than 3/16". I put shims in the widest place and it measures 9/32"



I'll also weld a bit on the top edge portion of the door to even up the arc around the end of the fender.

Originally Posted by 68ragtop

.... Did you fit your fenders to the bumper, gapped the hood edge & got lucky with the doors, or did you tweak the doors a bit? I started my gaps in the front and worked to the fronts of the doors. then twisted the doors to fit the quarters. backwards from how the factory did it...

No, I did it the exact opposite of you. I started with lining up the rear door edge and bottom gaps. Matching the style creases on the rear edge to the quarter determined the bottom gap and then just made sure it was straight and level with the rocker all the way to the front by adjusting the door hinges..





After that, I considered the door permanently in place. (This won't change when I R&R the doors for painting since I'm just going to pull the pins. The hinges will stay in place.)
Then I aligned the fenders to the doors, hood to fenders and nose to fenders all at the same time. Moving any one affects the rest. I am happy there there turned out to be only one place I had to weld to add metal. This is much less than I expected.

As I said in my previous update, I needed to take the d/s fender off and correct the curve to the bottom part in the area where I installed the patch panel. Actually I had to R&R it twice. The first time to make a couple of relief cuts in the support bracket then reinstall and bend it a little to fit and then the second time to weld up the relieve cuts.
As I thought, it did come out perfect and the gap is good top to bottom and level to the door good as well:





When the hood stays on, and you're removing a fender, the hood hinge has come completely off. I drilled some 1/8" guide holes to help me get the fender back in the same spot. 2 through the lower part of the hinge near the 2 bolts to the fender and one in the fender bracket to cowl.





I made that hood prop bar a couple of projects back and it comes in handy. It's a piece of aluminum tubing with rubber walking cane tips on both ends.