Fender Alignment

[65Rob]

The continuing saga of the 65 vert

I'm working my way around the car pre-fitting the panels for final body work and the fender is giving me fits. I got the door as good as one could hope for and the fender is sitting just as well, but as soon as I tighten the bottom rocker bolt it sucks down about an 1/8" making a mess out of an otherwise pretty good situation. I know I have to get everything as perfect as possible while I work my way around , things will only get worse. Any suggestions on how to keep it where it is, there isn't anything that supports the outer edge of the fender from making it dip down

 

[2+2GT]

Bend the brace on the back of the fender, or shim it.

 

[65Rob]

The brace isn't really the problem, with the top bolts on the fender and the upper bolt on the brace tigtened everything is perfect. As soon as I tighten the bottom bolt that goes to the rocker it pulls the fender down, I've tried it without shims and with shims, it needs one so the bottom is reasonably aligned but as I tighten it the fender shifts down. The problem is there is nothing that supports the outer part of the fender other than the bottom bolt and the two bolts on the brace, the latter of which move when the bottom one is tightened. I spent hours yesterday and got nowhere.

 

[65Rob]

Well I got it, I stuffed a half dozen washers between the fender and rocker to hold it at bay. I didn't really think it would help as it was an up and down problem but apparantly it was pulling in a bit which caused it to come down as well. Pulled the washers out and it's sitting pretty