[camaro freak]

I bought both AMD (I wanted Goodmark but Goodmark themselves told me that AMD was better) front fenders, a header panel, lower valance and lower fender extensions for my 69 Camaro RS. I have spent 3 weeks of adjusting and adjusting and adjusting and so on trying to get this front right and I am still not there. I am close. The passenger side fender went on pretty close to right and aligned fairly good with the other pieces. The driver side fender has been a nightmare. It doesn't want to align correctly with the header, it wants to ark up at the header leaving a gap between header/ fender arera and grill. I used a come along strap and got most of the ark out by force but the other problem i have is that the grill insert doesn't want to set in like it should. In the upper corners of the grill, where the grill meets the fender in the 90 degree curve area, the grill on both sides wants to set slightly behind the lip instead of setting in the lip. It is leaving a small gap there and ig you look closely you can see light between the grill and fender. Can anyone offer some help or is this what you get with aftermarket metal and I have to live with that?

 

[camaro freak]

Pictures...

Need some thoughts on these please!

 

[camaro freak]

More pics...

Some more thoughts needed...

 

[camaro freak]

and some more pics...

and some more thoughts needed...

 

[ericnova72]

Doesn't look too bad for the most part, for aftermarket steel. You may have to die grind the mount holes at the bottom of the fenders to get them to pull in far enough, looks like maybe the drivers door needs to move forward a skosh. Seen the bigger gap at the top rear of the doors even with factory original cars. Gaps around the hood and front header look pretty good. Passenger door is a mess though. Were the quarters ever replaced in the past??

Nothing aftermarket comes close to factory fit, you have to modify everything, whether it is grind some off or weld some on or whatever.

Maybe it is worse in person than in the pics??

These are mass produced uni-body cars and never fit that great to begin with.

 

[camaro freak]

response...

The only sheet metal that is GM metal is the hood, trunk lid and cowl panel. This car sit in a field rotting away from 72 until 89. It was a total basket case! Some of it was rotted away, some was missing and some was already disassembled. I had very little to go by. The pictures, I think, make things a little better than what it is. I have look at a hundred Camaros and find some that every gap looks perfect and some that are like mine and some that are worse than mine. The passenger door has too much room around it. I have seem other cars with this same problem even one that the owner swore was original GM metal. It drives me nuts looking at these gaps. It really seems that all the aftermarket gives you is something to work with. The header panel to fender gap especially on the drivers side really jumps out at me when I look at it. Any ideas on how to make it better? The drivers door when I move it at all forward it rubs the fender when I open it. Any ideas on how I can tighten that space around the passenger door? The hood gap between hood and header panel right in the center is enough to see the latch support bolt heads that fasten to the header panel. Is that common? I can close it up by pulling up on the header panel but then the grill gap is too wide. Thank you for your help!

 

[ericnova72]

All you can do is work with it. I can just about guarantee you that the cars with perfect gaps the owners tried several of the same pieces from different companies until they found what they needed for fit(or close enough to rework), along with grinding and welding edges, extending lips, splitting and welding at bends and panel intersections, etc. Alot of times they would rather have a rotted door skin with a repairable frame and reskin the door rather than use an aftermarket part because the aftermarket part will end up taking more work to get a good fit.

To move the drivers door forward, you may have to shift the entire front clip on the frame. Loosen at the core support to frame mount, add and remove shims at the cowl bolts and move the pass side back and the drivers side forward from the looks of it. Have you measured for squareness of the front subframe to rear body from under the car??

Sometimes you will have to give up 2 good gaps to end up with 5 presentable gaps.

What was on the car for doors when you replaced the rear quarters??

 

[302 Z28]

I agree with Eric, some of those gaps aren't that bad. The other ones that are too wide will have to be tightened up by adding material to the door or fender as needed. The quarters are there for the duration and it's much easier to add material to the rear of the door. Add too much then true it up by grinding it away. It's tough enough getting the gaps close with OEM parts, after market parts always require massaging by adding or taking material off. I saw a video of the building of a Dynacorn(sp) 69 Camaro and that is exactly what they had to do to all the doors.

Vince

 

[dinger]

I have to agree with these guys, after market parts will be a little more difficult also.

How well is the frame blocked up? Your door gaps look as though the front may be sagging a little under the weight. Don't get real crazy about making things perfect until you drop the car down to set under it's own weight. Gaps could change quite a lot at that time. Good luck, that will be a nice car and a car you can take a good deal of pride.

 

[esahlin]

Ive been going through the gap problem this whole past year on a 68 Firebird (similar pieces to your Camaro). I am using repro qtrs, original fenders and repro door skins. I have to say that the repro door skins were/are horrible. I actually first installed a set of the repro skins on both doors and spent a couple of months trying to get a good fit. I actually removed those skins and bought different ones and spent forever aligning them to the door shell and fender/qtr before welding them to the door shell. Well, even after all that work I had to weld some 1/8 diameter and 1/16 diameter welding rod to some of the edges of the door skins/shell to get my door to fender and door to rocker and door to qtr gaps looking good. I cant even count how many times Ive had the doors on and off the car aligning and massaging them. It was a real pain and takes extreme patience ain: . Now I know why it costs big bucks to get a really nice resto done by a professional......its alot of painful work.

 

[chevymike]

Also remember, gaps in '69 (factory) were nothing like they are today. Trying to achive today's standards, even with factory sheet metal (unlike the crappy repop of today) is enough to drive people over the edge.

Good luck. You have a lot of good advice above.

 

[camaro freak]

great info....

That is what I needed, some ideas on what to do. Great info. Thanks!