The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Body Panel alignment

Hi Everyone
I have been part of stove bolt for over 3-1/2 years since I purchased my 1952 Chevy 3100 and still working on it.
Finished most of the metal work and started lining up the panels again. Mainly the front end with a new rad support (the old one was cracked and been welded up )
What I really would like to know and I do have the factory assembly manual and shop manuals is the procedure on how to line up the front end. So basically I stripped every panel and did all my rust repair and am starting to put panels back together. First I started with bolting the rad support on tight then tried to bold the inner fenders and front fenders but getting the holes to line up in the rad support was not easy.(too much force) So then I figured leave everything loose and start bolting up all the panels. Then I tried the hood on. Now I am kinda stuck in which way to go. Do you start by tightening up the fenders and see how they line up to the hood?
Or should everything be tightened up and then shim what is out based on the gaps.
Also should I have the front grill bolted in when lining up the fenders to hood?
Too many questions so little space. I would appreciate if anyone could give me some basic steps to follow to assemble the front end of a 1952 Chevy 3100 and line up panels and gaps.
I attached some photo's of where I'm at , gaps are not good yet.

Paul the shop teacher

Step one: Adjust the hood to fit the cowl of the cab as per the Manual. (You will then be completely done with adjusting the hood.)

Step two: Adjust the fenders to fit the underside of the hood.

Leaving the inner fender-to-cab bolts off will help a lot in aligning the fenders. You can put those on after you tighten everything else up.

Yes, install the grill. You will need to make sure that it fits the fenders at the top corners. (Reproduction grills often need adjustment with a hammer in that location.

I use 1/4 inch nuts and bolts for the rear fender-to-cowl holes to ease getting the other bolts up in the front started. Once all of the other nuts and bolts are started and left stupid loose, I replace the 1/4" nuts and bolts with the correct 5/16" fasteners.

A tapered awl or thin center punch works great for aligning the holes to get bolts started.

Thanks for that Master Gabster that will start me off in a direction and hopefully I can muster enough patience to get it done.
I appreciate the advise

Paul

So have been working on the front on the front end sheet metal alignmnet on my 52 Chevy 3100 after the advise from Master Gabster. So I aligned the hood to the best that it loks to me and got it to close on the hood latch and this is what I have (see photos attached) The driver side front fender to hood gap is a little large compared to the passenger side to hood fender gap. Also the driver side front fender seems to protrude out the the hood and the passenger side is even.
the other two photos show the gap of the driver and passenger side fenders to cab. There you can see a gap on both and I have the bolts tightened up.
So my thoughts for the fenders gap fix is try and move the rad support over to the passenger side to try and even the gaps on the hood to fenders.
But just not sure how to get rid of those gaps on the fender to hood area. I know I didn't have those gaps when I took them apart.
To me it looks like I may have to bend the medal some to close those gaps.
Any ideas would help.

Thanks

Start with pulling the fender in with the threaded rod which goes from the inner fender to the firewall. You need to loosen the fender-to-cowl bolts and the radiator support-to-crossmember bolts first.
To fix the uneven gaps along the sides of the hood, you need to loosen the radiator-to-crossmember bolts and all of the fender to cowl bolts so that you can move the the radiator support towards where the gap is the largest. A long pry bar will help. A second set of hands isn't necessary, but it would help.
BTW, my friends just call me Carl

I'm thinking, after you do Carl's side to side adjustment, you might need to shim the radiator support. In fact, to get your side to side, shim the drivers side of the radiator support. But it looks like the whole front of the assembly can go up a smidge. Then adjust your hood catch back down to your latch panel.

One way to tell if that's what you need, is loosen the fender to cowl fasteners, loosen the radiator support bolts, and put a decent size pry bar between the mount and the frame. Slowly lift while keeping an eye on what your gaps are doing. If your gaps even out from side to side, peek down by your pry bar and see how much shim you'll need. Then check your inner fender to cowl rods for even tension.

You are doing fine and have great advisors. Follow them and be patient. Aligning all the heavy sheet metal is difficult for anyone.
You may want to tape some wooden shims between hood and fender to automatically get the gap required. Especially with a one man operation. 52Carl (or Carl) and MNSmith (or Mark) can advise if AD is the same as TF, in that "C" shims can be used to raise a fender up to level or to level other sheet metal pieces.

Also "Master Gabster" is an autofill in the "Custom Title" space, showing a level of how many posts or longevity of a member. Many members may have that under their Display Name. We use the post name or their actual name, if given, to refer to each other.
Yours is "New Guy". But you are The Shop Teacher (Paul).

Thanks Carl I will try that and see what heppend, I appreciate your time the advice

Paul

Hi Ken
Thanks I will try that and I didn't know about the names this is new to me I've been on here since 2016 but off and on as I have questions come up during my restoration then I come on or when I want to see what is going on or for sale, This is my first one restoration so it has been a learning experience as you guys already know.