My '48 is a major rust bucket. Not even sure why I'm trying to do this since a body guy I'm not. But l love this old thing. Anyway, I'm trying to patch in A pillars. Found some decent ones in South Dakota. The long and short is after doing just about everything wrong, I got the 'new' A pillar in. Had to leave a big gap to have enough wiggle room. Got the the A pillar in; bolted it to the body mounts using new body mount pads and everything seemed to line up. Had to use pads on the cowl mount even though none were there from the factory. I aligned everything and tacked in into place. Put the door back on to find that it's low about a 1/2'' at the B pillar body line. I wiggled the hinges the best I could and could not make up the difference. But, I think if I add a shim (1/8") to the lower hinge (door side), I can make up most of the difference. I didn't add the shim yet. Just loosened the bolts and lifted the door. This doesn't seem like a good idea. Everything bolts in and seems to line up. By the way, the doors aligned fine before I cut out the rusted out pillar. I also found that the distance between the top two inner fender to cowl mounting cage nuts are off by about 1/4 inch. If I align that distance everything else falls out of alignment. So I'm stumped. I braced everything up before cutting things out so I'm sure nothing moved. The 'new' pillars are out of a 4 door sedan. Mine is a 2 door coupe. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Gary
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