1973olds98

how much work is it to take the front fenders, doors,,front nose piece off and realign everything,,

cutlassjoe

How long would it take to count all the sand on all the beaches....Just kidding. If they are the panels that came off the car it should not be too bad. If you are putting on replacement panels it may be a bit harder. There are some good guys on here with more s'perience than me.

When I did my resto I replaced the doors, fenders and hood. It was a bear to get everything to line up right.

1973olds98

it dosent look bad,,I just wait until i get it painted,,,

ziff396

Re-align everything before paint! It is worth the extra time before hand, and you will not have so much to worry about as far as scratching new paint etc. Ask me how I know!!

oldsguybry

probably a good idea , as long as were on the subject , I hastedly took panels off without paying a whole lot of attention to what spacer goes where but got panels almost perfect after swearing alot and throwing things. Im in need of a bolt kit including spacers for my fenders , the old ones are missiong parts and all rusty, ask me how dumb it is to POR-15 the threads on a bolt.

Rickman48

Nephew has a '69 Cutass S that was in pretty good shape, for reasonabe money - thought the right door needed aignment, so pulled the bumper, fender and door.
Spent about 5 hours on it, only to find someone put the door panel on crooked!
Apon further inspection, we found a 2nd quarter paneL, ON TOP OF THE OLD ONE!
Guess it was hit pretty hard on the right side, once apon a time, and a butcher fixed it!

Lady72nRob71

but ask ME how dumb it is to fill the threads of four threaded seat fittings that are part of the floorboard!

Solution?
Keep the bolts away from them and let it dry. Get yourself a tap and die set to clean the threads out. I used an $18 harbor freight set, about the only good use for those cheap sets.

Bluevista

Okay...How dumb is it??

I was still tweaking the sheet metal and blocking the primer out to do a final 1000th check for any surface irregularities or missed spots the night before I took the Vista in to the body shop for paint.
The doors have to be aligned and set to the quarters first or you'll never get the front sheet metal to fit right, otherwise putting on the front clip is no big deal. It just takes a little bit of common sense and a lot of patience, and like most things you put together or repair, you have to know where everything goes and what it's supposed to look like and do after it goes together.

ziff396

I agree. I set my doors to the new quarters first, (I replaced the quarters), then aligned the doors to the rocker. The fenders were another story as I had to shim the radiator support and tweek the fenders with my knee a few times, on and off the car, for a decent fit at the doors before finish bodywork and paint.