The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop frontend assembly

I am just having one holy hell of a time putting together the front sheetmetal of my 49- GMC. It was a mess when I bought it featuring among other things the hood hitting the grill surround resulting in not quite a gap between hood and fender, but a mother of a canyon. I mistakenly thought I could do a better job but to no avail. I shimmed the front of the fenders out just to get the surround to fit between them. The fender/ rad. housing holes are now WAY off from one another but I own a drill. The hood just won't center on the fenders though and is still hitting the surround but now only on the right side. The only way I see around that is to space the surround out so the hood closes behind it but that piece dictates where the receiver for the hood latch ends up, and where it ends up is too far forward to release the latch once engaged. Oh, and then only about two bolt holes line up.

To summarize, its a pretty ugly mess cause it looks like nothing fits anything. Anyone have tips? Pics of what all the intersections should look like would be really helpful. I actually thought I remembered there be an article on aligning panels in the tech section but I can not find it.

There is a section in the GMC maintenance manual. If you don't have a copy, I can scan the section and send it to your email address. But even with that, it is not easy. Lots of trial and error, and lots of shimming.