Ok. I was reading a post here on adjusting the doors on a 40 Ford Tudor. Should be about the same for the 37. I just put on the new Grille I made. That fits fine. I am now trying to get everything else to fit. I am using the original hood opener. That fits fine. After that I have problems. If I go up on the front of the fenders it throws off the hood. If I push down on the back and leave the hood where it works. It won't. I can get one side just fine. Then the other side goes off. If I shim the cowl it throws off the door. The gap between the hood and the hood filler on the drivers side looks good. On the p***engers side it is off by maybe 1/2". Is there a book out there that explains just how all of this is done?? Thanks..
There's no book I've ever seen on adjusting all the front sheet metal on a 37. Maybe there has been a magazine article that somebody remembers. Has your body had repairs, like a new floor, or a modified firewall? How about components from different sources, like the doors from one car, the fenders from another, or the hood from another? If yes to any of this, you should probably expect your parts will need modifications. Not all the parts from the factory were the same, and if something has been cut and welded on the body, it's likely it was done in a fashion to make things crooked. Many guys start by getting the doors to fit best on the body, then move to the front sheetmetal. It's lots easier to modify fenders and hoods than it is to get a door to fit into a hole it doesn't want to.
You are describing my car. Including a whole cowl cut and shut (38 to 39 body) Plus my doors are 40. It's fun!
O.T. 356 Porsches were body-to-door particular; that is, fitted at the factory. One at a time. I welded lots of leading and trailing edges on those...years of that. My bud Frank bought a cherry '38 Fordor, dove gray...I fought that hood and both side panels for a day, then said: "Let me trammel this..." Jacked it up, leveled it, and discovered the frame was 'high' on the left front. Not 'much', just...3/4 - 7/8". (!!) A 2-ton Hein-Werner floor jack with the front axle chained to the high part of the rail, then a 'lift' on the jack at the low part did it in 3 separate careful applications. That hood fit like Stormy Daniels' top in 3 shakes.
^^^^^^^^^This is the place to start.......level the ch***is and check the frame for horizontal ‘twist’, such as A****er Mike describes above. Then check for body alignment to the ch***is...meaning the body being actually centered on the ch***is, side to side. Then, as Alchemy mentions, get the doors fitting correctly. That may take one or more methods to accomplish. Using shims at the body mounts to tweak the door openings is the most common. It may require a port a power ‘adjustment if a door opening in some cases. Lastly, after getting the doors to fit the body the best you can with adjustments, modifying door edges to correct remaining gaps may necessary. But back to the front sheet metal fit. Once you have checked frame for misalignment and ensured the body is square on the frame, the front sheetmetal fitment may improve enough to dial it in. If not, then mods to components may be a last resort. Ray
Using the B pillar as a starting point and the subsequent door opening as an immutable reference can be misleading in that the door opening might be high or low or forward or back slightly or even tilted off axis but when you're working to a tolerance of let's say 1/16" things tend to get worse rather than better if something ain't right. When you're going for accuracy, diagonal measurement is your best friend. Good diagonal measurements usually require 2 people, I might add. At this point in your project all it can do is point out where things may deviate and where corrections may be made. I've done a lot of work over the years where something had to fit something else whether it was rebuilding an existing "something" or designing a whole new "something." I ALWAYS designed some sort of adjustment factor into the process to get an acceptable final fit. You're basically in the boat-building realm where there's no straight lines and playing in 3 dimensions where if you change one, the other 2 are affected. I feel your pain. As others have stated, the frame may play a role but pretend for a minute that gravity ceased to exist and you could just float these parts in mid-air and make them all fit perfectly. Where would you start? The radiator cap? No, the B pillar. Well, if you'll allow that the B pillar was at some point in the process of your build allowed to move in any or all of 3 dimensions (floor, rocker boxes, body mount repairs, old collision damage ) and then you positioned them and called it "done" you might be on shaky ground. This is in no way an attack on your skill or experience. We've all been to the place where we "did everything right" and ended up displeased. Now the fun begins where you backtrack through all the "right" stuff you did to find the one wrong thing. Measuring your body panels left and right might be a good place to start. You may make a wrapping paper tracing of the left side door and hood panel and flop it onto the right side door and hood panel and see what you got. If things jive at this point, I'd lean towards the B pillar being the issue. This just addresses the length of the attached panels, not the height. Stay in one dimension for as long as you can to find out everything there is to know and then move on to the next- measure, measure, and then measure some more. Turn the radio off, shut the cellphone off, lock the door and get in the zone. Be patient on top of patient and eventually you will have the "Ah-Ha" moment and if you don't, you didn't stay in the zone long enough. If this is keeping you awake at night, you're in the zone. Embrace it, this is when the human mind does it's best work and the answer WILL come, I promise you. I've never lied to you before. And sometimes, after you really hit the wall (but not until) and pursued every possible angle, bringing in a fresh pair of eyes of someone much smarter will get you the "Ah-Ha" event. I'd wish you good luck but luck ain't going to get it.
If the "B" pillar is the one where the lock is?? Then that is where I started. Loosened it up, and it did nothing. Now I went to the cowl loosened the bolts all the way down to the door lock pillar. Raised it, and the gap came perfect. Put the rubber pads on the bolts and started tightening them back down watching for the gap to change. When I found a bolt that started to take the gap out of the door again. I stopped, and shimmed it by 1/16". If that didn't work, then I went up by 1/8". The gap is still off a little. I will try another 1/16" shim tomorrow night.
Okay. What a pain in the ****. Took the fenders off. Got the hood perfect. Used the inner fender, Grille, hood filler and the hood. up and down until everyone fit just right. Great gap at the back of the hood filler and the cowl, and adjusted the inner fender to the hood. It all sat there real nice. Even the hood slid over that center stud without touching anything. Tightened everything down tight and reinstalled the fenders. Now the whole works is off again. The slots where the bumper brackets go are sitting way to high. I lowered the front enough for it to line up, and now the gap in the hood filler is tight at the top, and wide at the bottom. The hood stud still kind of fits, but it is off. I will take the fenders off again tomorrow and try again.
You never did answer my question. Does the car have major repair or fabrication done to the frame, floor, firewall, or other body panels? If you can get everything except the bumper brace holes to line up, you are doing great. 99 times out of 100 something is going to have to be slotted/bent or even cut and welded to make the fit look good.
I thought I told you. New floor, Fenders from a different car. Had to make my own firewall. Made my Grille, so that is from two other cars, hood filler panels from another car, and hood and inner fenders from who knows what. Well I took the fender off again this morning. Lift pull push. Slot cut slot again. I almost have it dialed in on the p***engers side fender. As soon as I start to tweak it just a little. It throws the whole works off again. Just have to keep on going. I have a stool that I sit on and look to see where I might have to move it next.
Sometimes it takes more than just slotting and bending. Might need to do some big cutting and slicing. A sliver taken out or added here or there could be the answer. Cutting a flange off a fender or inner panel and adding a pie wedge has been done before for a perfect fit.
If everything fit, doors, hood, and fenders, and then the mounting points for the bumper were too high, it sounds like your frame is high in front.
Just went thru this on a 37 Woody. Took a lot of moving things around to get the fitment right.-I was atn ***embled and painted car but the front clip was all out of whack. Had to move the front clip to p*** side a bit and raise it on the frame as the bumper holes were lower than the frame. This was an aftermarket frame and I had to move the front clip up 3/8" near the front where panel crosses frame. Took awhile but finally got it looking good-had to make a small spacer under the rear dr side panel screw and lift it about 1/8-3/16th to get a good line. Also the welt between the side panel that curve up toward the grill can be fun where they curve at the forward end-insert stiff wire in side welting and bent to fit contour--looks good and stays put.
Possibly....or maybe the cowl is too low and body mount mounts need a shim or two. Either or both could account for the issue. Ray
Well I know the frame is out of whack on the p***engers side. The guy I bought it from moved it around his yard with a fork lift. I had to raise the car up on the front of the cowl to get a good gap. If i had it to do it over again. I would pull the body off the frame again, and fix the frame, but I am not all that young anymore, and it is just me doing all of this. I do have most of it pretty good right now. Just have this little dip that just bothers me. Where the hood filler, grille, and hood meet. It doesn't quite fit right. The hood falls over the grille stud just fine, but the hood hits hard on the tip of the grille. I'll take a picture of this.
This is what I started with. Didn't have much, and most of it had to be replaced. Body is on 2x4's. There was no front clip.
The woody did the same--fit over stud but hit at front. Made a 1/8 shim under the pin and raised thefro nt clip a bit a s mentioned-3/8 on p*** side-1/2+ on dr side. Prior to that it would hit at front of hood/grille and kick back of hood up at cowl. It took my wife and I 2 days to get the front clip to fit right-good now.
And another word of warning...once you spend your week or so adjusting, tweaking, rat tail filing, cutting and re-welding and getting it to fit together perfectly...then you take it apart for paint. Once the paint is dry, you begin re-***embly. You may find that it doesn't fit together perfectly again. My theory is the drying paint warps the metal (tongue in cheek). Keep with it, sounds like you're making ground on it.
Umm... someone welded IFS on the front of that frame... that could've easily pulled that frame out of whack... even if you cut it back off afterward. AND, it's been boxed... if that's done without that frame being secured while it's welded, it's going to twist up big time. And... it's been lifted with a forklift and lord only knows what else that car & ch***is have gone through. ***Shameless plug here... but my shop mate Mr. Ford (HAMB name) on here has a super duper staight boxed frame for sale on here.. that would alleviate most of your problems. It's fully done and ready to rock and roll*** 3blap.
Discounting the 'tongue in cheek', comment, which is funny........This can and does happen easily enough. What I have done to eliminate or minimize this predicament is, before dis***embling the now great fitting parts, is to drill a very small hole through the parts near key attachment points. Then when re***embling it's an aide to duplicating the fit you fought for. A small pin, like a piece of small diameter welding rod or a pop rivet shank can 'dial in' the alignment. Ray
I was going to send you some pictures of what I did today. I had it perfect. Everything fit except for one little spot. I just wanted to pull it up maybe 1/4" more. I had everything cranked down, or so I thought. I pulled the front leg off the bolt on the inner panel. Now the whole thing looks like **** again. At least this time I know where to lift it to get it back again. I wish I could afford a new frame, but I am about to retire and I will only have about $900 per month left after Part B, and Part D. Drivers side is fine. Just has the rubber pad. P***engers side is bad. I am up right now about 1"at the cowl, and the rubber pad by the time you get back to the post at the back of the door.
Your persistance will get you there. You probably wish you were getting paid by the hour for the job.
Been at this working on this car when I could since 1993, and not knowing what to do. I do have another question though.. I raised the front in order to get the gap better at the rear of the door.. Shouldn't I be lifting the back to pull the gap better at the bottom of the door there?? Gap at the front is fine. Even with the spacers out
That is a great trick that I've used when dis***embling string b***es, just 4 tiny holes to insert tiny nails into when putting things back together i.e regluing. Metal parts don't move around very much when you take them apart but wooden parts sure do. Another trick I've used when you're trying to make a left side and a right side end up good is to work to the smaller dimension. Make the "shorter side" good and let the other side be tight. It's much easier to grind a 1/16" off something than to add it.
Keep reading and read again what 59Tele wrote. Very good advice. It's so easy to overlook the obvious.
Doesn't help. I have had a learning disorder since I was born. Hard to understand what he said. Hard to overlook the obvious when you don"t know what the obvious is.. All I can say is I will try again. Over and over until I get it right. Then I will learn. Okay I have read it a few times now. That would make sense if the panels were there to begin with. I had no front end to start with. I pieced together my grille. I'll just keep doing it until I figure it out.
Also remember these cars were NOT perfect when new ! M*** production, poor quality stampings compared to today, ***emblies made from many small parts which increased the number of tolerances and low quality control and you would have had a brand new 37 Ford . As already stated work to the short side , much easier to cut or trim edges than to add metal. And when you drive it and twist and flex ,it's going to change anyhow. Later Bill
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