Day 55 - New Door Hinges and Panel Placement/Gaps

Today we started with some new bling! New Door hinges and bolts. We had to remove the doors, replace the hinges then align the door as best as we could. Since the front fender is new, the door jamb is new, the quarter panel is new, we decided to align the door with the rocker panel.

Once this was done we moved to the other side and did the same.

Then we moved onto aligning each fender and hood. this took some time as the fenders were not cooperating and needed some persuasive smashing to get them aligned.

Once it was all aligned, we found that the quarter panel on the driver side should be moved back about 1/8th of and inch which help confirm our suspicions based on the measurements we took yesterday.

We then removed the quarter panel and I got started cutting and grinding out the old door jamb, while dad continued on the battery support patch panel.

 

Day 54 - Measurements and More Trunk.. oh and patch for battery holder.

Today, My dad and I began with more adjustments to the sail panel. I feel like I have cut this thing to pieces. These AMD parts are nice and all but their dies are shitty as all get out. we had to clamp a 2 x 6 to the sail panel to begin to reshape/BEND THE HELL out of the panel.

With the sail panel FINALLY in, it was time to cleco the trunk gutters in place. It looks like one side is closer than the other. It may even mean the tail panel isn't centered. While I can tell something is off its going to take a lot more time to figure it out.

 

 

The first test was to level the quarter panels, This found that the driver side quarter panel was fairly low. I placed a bottle jack and the flat side of a 2x6 to jack up the quarter panel. Now with both panels  level, we began measuring from different points on the car to try to determine if the fenders are not in the same location. If they are an equal distance from the same points, this would indicate that the fenders are at least centered.

It looks like that either the passenger side quarter panel needs to be moved in by 1/8th of an inch OR the driver side quarter panel needs to be moved out by 1/8th of an inch. The question is which one is right?
The best way to find this out is to get the doors, fenders and hood all mounted correctly THEN see if one fender needs to move in or out. More on this next time.

My dad was tasked, by me :), to patch the battery tray mount under the hood. He began fabricating a small piece to weld in under the hood.

Day 53 - Setup for Panel Fit

So my dad helped me with the charger today and will be over the next few days. Today we started with removing the rear suspension from the shackles and mounts and getting the charger as high up in the air as possible. Then we attached 2 frames with wheels to the shackle mount point in the rear. We then raised the front of the car, pulled out the torsion bar clips, and the torsion bars. We then removed the upper control arm bolts and fittings. Next, we removed the K-member bolts and dropped whole suspension on the ground.   We had some trouble with the driver side and work it out of the upper control arm mount points. With the front suspension removed we then added the rack mounts directly to the K-member mount points using the same bolts. We then had to position the car and level out the frame. Once this was completed, we then began work on the sail panel. while it looks like it fits in the other pictures, it REALLY doesn't. I had to trim off one side and bent the whole channeled piece with a 2 X 6 and some clamps (pics to come later).