Day 56 - Driver side door jamb and trunk.

Today I cleco'ed the driver side door jamb, and refitted the quarter panel. It looks like the quarter panel on the driver side is now sitting in a better position. both quarter panels are about 1/16th of an inch difference.

We then mounted the trunk and the fit is looking better, however the sail panel isn't sitting quite right.

My dad welded up the patch under the hood.

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 52 - Driver Side Quarter Panel

Today we test fitted the driver side quarter panel. Its a better fit than the passenger side. I placed the sail panel and trunk in just to see how its all fits together.

Day 51 - Front clip

Today, Travis and I attached the front clip to the charger to get a better Idea as to where the doors should be.

We found that we should start the alignment with the hood to cowl gap, then the fenders to the hood gap, then the doors to the fender and then we should be in a good position to verify the door jamb placement and quarter panel location.

Day 48 - Door Jamb and more rear window malarkey!

Today, I went ahead and replaced the door jamb with the new one from AMD. This is an excellent part. Its super heavy duty and comes with the striker bracket on the back. I had marked where i removed the old one, however this one seemed a little bit shorter when it came to the lower part of the door sill. I took my best guess and spot welded it into place.

Travis continued working on the interrior lower rear window frame. This required a custom piece to be fabricated and fudged into place. I know this isn't the perfect way to do this, but I am not going for a show car here, just a daily driver.

We also attached the new door for a test fit.