71 nova fender to door gap

[earntaz]

What is an &quot;exceptable&quot; fender/door gap? The left fender is original and the right from a doner car. Seems the only way they line up well is with at least a 1/4&quot; gap. I have looked at a number of photos on-line and it seems the Novas have a pretty wide gap there. Any suggestions/comments? Thanks ... TAZ <<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/dunno.gif

[jasonL78]

Ahhhhh the downs of a sub frame car. Try jacking off the passenger side rocker seam just behind the fender dog leg... of coarse protect the seam with a block of wood or rag rolled up. So basically what you are doing is take the weight off the sub frame. You will be surprised how easily the front sheet metal will line up better. The front fenders, core support, is all apart of the front support structure of the car. The sheet metal ties it all together.

Hope this helps...Jason

[earntaz]

Thanks Jason -- so what can I expect/shoot for as far as gap? TAZ

[jasonL78]

A 1/4&quot; would be a good gap to have. I always try to get my door to quarter and door to fender gap as close as possible.

[Keith Seymore]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jasonL78</div><div class="ubbcode-body">A 1/4&quot; would be a good gap to have. I always try to get my door to quarter and door to fender gap as close as possible.
</div></div>

I installed about 900,000 truck front fenders (...well...1.8 million if you count LH and RH...LOL): I agree a 1/4&quot; gap is probably acceptable.

The main thing I would look for is a gap that is consistent top to bottom; an &quot;A&quot; gap or a &quot;V&quot; gap usually draws attention to itself and is more objectionable.

K

[earntaz]

Thanks for the input -- I'll tackle em' again today ... TAZ

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jasonL78</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Ahhhhh the downs of a sub frame car. Try jacking off the passenger side rocker seam just behind the fender dog leg... of coarse protect the seam with a block of wood or rag rolled up. So basically what you are doing is take the weight off the sub frame. You will be surprised how easily the front sheet metal will line up better. The front fenders, core support, is all apart of the front support structure of the car. The sheet metal ties it all together.

Hope this helps...Jason </div></div>

I'm not following...do you mean to actually loosen the frame mount or just put a jack under the rocker just aft of the fender?

[jasonL78]

Yes just jack off the rocker Marlin right next to fender door gap. I always had a problem with fenders lining up with the door. Tight at top and a bigger gap at bottom. I was talking to a very wise man one day and he informed me how to get the front fenders to line up on a sub-frame car. Think about it with no front sheet metal on the car the only thing holding the sub-frame to the car is 4 rubber mounts. Now if your sub-frame mounting points are true you may not have to do this. But a lot of these cars where driven and beat on. So most sub-frames are bent or twisted one way or the other. So by just taking the weight off of the front of the sub-frame you will be amazed at how easily you get a good fender gap.

[bbbentley]

&quot;...just &quot;jack off&quot; the rocker...&quot; Uh, I could say so much humorously, but I actually want to learn myself how to do these alignments. I am not refuting your advice Jason, because I do not have the experience with aligning, but a couple of questions would be: 1) how would jacking in that area help, if when relaxed (jack removed), would not everything return to the pre-jacked position? 2) My experience is with 1st gen. Camaros and the factory assembly process had the front sheet metal installed first, yes the cowl attaching points are strong enough to support the front sheet metal hanging without additional support, I am told. Then, the sub frame was raised under the car in assembly process. So, this being the case that the s.frame is irrelevant in the initial assembly alignment, how would the s.frame affect s.metal alignment now, in the restoration process?
My reference is as follows:
<span style="font-weight: bold">Assembly Process by John Hinkley</span>, published on the <span style="font-weight: bold">CRG</span> site, &quot;The &quot;buck-built&quot; front clip was lowered into place with an overhead hoist; two operators guided it into position, pulling the rear of the fenders outboard to clear the side shroud &quot;saddlebags&quot; on the body as the assembly moved rearward. The hook was then released and the hoist went back upstairs to pick up the next assembly. At this point, operator skill became critical as the shim packs were made up and stuffed in place for the top, front, side, and bottom fender-to-body attachments to achieve the correct gap and flush fits between the fenders and the body.

Establishing a perfectly square hood opening was critical, as the hood was &quot;trapped&quot; on all four sides by the header, fenders, and cowl vent grille; a special &quot;hood squaring fixture&quot; was dropped in place. It had two pins at the rear that went into the two holes in the cowl just inboard of the fenders (the ones with the little black plastic plugs in them), two pins at the front that engaged the two holes in the top of the radiator support just inboard of the diagonal brace attachments, and locator blocks on the sides for the fenders. Once the fender fit points at the rear were properly shimmed and secured, the squaring fixture was removed, and the front end was ready for the hood.

The last step prior to hood installation was to retrieve the antenna body from the R.H. hinge pillar and install it to the fender.&quot;

[earntaz]

Super input -- thanks ... TAZ

[jasonL78]

Ok I read my post and yes it can be picked apart. Common sense would tell you not to place a jack under the rocker and just start jacking (bad choice of words on my part). You need to use the rocker pinch weld as your jacking point (as close to fender as possible) with a block of wood, something soft, so you don’t damage the paint or the area you are jacking against. The original post asked: what is the proper fender gap on Novas? He mentioned nothing about doing a frame off restoration? It sounded to me like he was having issues mounting a fender and having trouble adjusting the fender gap. In the past when I was trying to align a fender up on a nova (just a fender swap) the gap at the top was smaller than the bottom like a 1/8” difference. It drove me crazy. By just jacking in this area, it allows the body to rise and the bottom of the fender comes back towards the rocker and gives you a nice even gap. The reason you need to jack in this area is you just removed a part of the front structure of the car (the fender swap.) You basically created a weak link so to say. If the sub frame bushings are worn or sub frame bushing areas are not true this side of the car is going to sag and you will never get the new fender to line back up. Trust me been there, with multiple hours spent on fender and door gaps.
If you are doing a frame off restoration most likely you would have had all sheet metal on the car, gaps checked, and blocked out before paint. Even when I restored my nova I performed those steps, but when I bolted my sheet metal on, the sub frame was under the car. I still had to jack off the pinch welds to get my fender gaps back to where they were when I blocked it out while on the rotisserie.
I’m sure I didn’t put my Nova back together in steps the factory took. I needed my car to roll during assembly so all my front sheet metal was bolted together after the sub frame was bolted to the body. There are a lot of different ways to come to the same conclusion.
So if you are trying to align fenders on a sub frame car with the sub frame mounted you may need to relieve the pressure your 4 sub frame bushing are supporting that’s all I’m trying to say. If you have the drive line installed you would be surprised how much weight is being supported by those 4 sub frame bushings.

[earntaz]

Thanks all -- just followed instructions from here and now all gaps are even top to bottom and less than 1/4&quot; ... TAZ