Headlight Assembly Gasket is NOT Flush & Snug with the Front Fender

RED2001GT

Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Mar 18, 2003
270
2
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I got my Mustang back from the body shop 2 days ago and it was dark out when I got my car back so I didn't notice anything wrong with any of the body work which the body shop did to my car. I haven't driven my Mustang since I brought it back home from the body shop 2 nights ago.
Today when I took my car out of the garage, I noticed that BOTH headlights have "gaps" between the black rubber gasket and the front fender. The passenger side headlight has a "HUGE" gap between the black rubber gasket that's on the top of the headlight and the front fender. The driver's side headlight has a smaller gap between the black rubber gasket that's on the top of the headlight and the front fender. Basically, the top of the rubber gasket that's on BOTH head light units are NOT flush inside the fender like they should be. There is a huge gap between the top of the black headlight gasket and the front fender on both the passenger and driver's side.

I took it back to the body shop and he told me to bring it back on Monday for him to take a look at it and to fix it. I don't know HOW something like this would go "unoticeable" after the body shop finished all the work and put the front bumper and the headlight units and the front grill back on the car after they did all the repairs?

I would like to know HOW the body shop is going to fix the problem? Will they have to take the entire front bumper off to do get the black headlight gasket that's located on top of the headlight to fit properly inside the fender? Or can the adjustment and fix be made without the front bumper being taken off the car? Please keep in mind that the body shop repaired and repainted the entire front bumper on my car. I am very afraid that they might SCRATCH the front bumper where the headlights are located if they don't do the repair properly. I am hoping that this is going to be a minor adjustment/repair and that they will not have to take off the front bumper to fix the gaps that exist between the headlights and the fender. What can you tell me about this type of repair/adjustment? How hard will it be for the body shop to make the headlight gasket fit snugly and flush into the front fender on both headlight units?

I paid out of my pocket for them to do the work and I am afraid that they might take a shortcut to do the repair properly. The body shop owner today told me that both headlights are snug and that he doesn't think that they are adjustable to make the rubber gaskets on the headlight units flush and snug with the fender. I told him that both headlights were snug and flush with the fender BEFORE I brought the car to him for repairs. I know the body shop owner because he has done body work to my car before, but I am afraid that he might say like he did to me earlier today that this is something normal. It isn't.

How hard is it to fix the gap problem that exists between the black rubber gasket on the top of the headlight assembly unit and the front fender?
 
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Do you have OEM headlights? I noticed with my aftermarket "made in taiwan" smoked headlights that there are slight gaps, just like you mentioned. The OEM's fit perfectly. It could very well be that the fenders and the bumper are lined up to spec, but the headlights themselves are the culprit. There also should be an even gap below the headlight and the bumper. Are the headlights resting on the front bumper at all? If so, you can get the headlights to line up better if you play around with the 2 "L" clips located on the back of each headlight. You may need to shim behind the clips to the radiator support to angle the headlight a little higher. Keep in mind that you may need to adjust the headlight beams down to compensate.
 
Both headlights are the factory headlights which came with my car since I purchased my Mustang brand new.
The headlight problem that I am having is on my 2002 V6 Mustang. I also own a 2001 Mustang GT, but the GT is fine.

The reason why my V6's headlights have a gap between them and the top front part of the fender is because the body shop took them off in order to take the bumper off to repair the front bumper. BEFORE he took them off they were flush and snug inside the fender. Now they are not. The passenger side headlight unit has a bigger gap between itself and the top part of the fender than the driver's side headlight unit. The gap is located between the black plastic gasket (which is part of the headlight unit) and the top part of the front fender.

Can anyone in here tell me WHAT the body shop did wrong when they reassembled everything back together after they did the repair on my front bumper? Also, can anyone tell me HOW this problem can be fixed in order to make the TOP PART of both front headlight units where the black rubber gasket is located flush and snug along along the fender?
 
Well man, all that stuff is adjustable. Just let the body shop sort it out. Ask them to align your headlight beams also, they probably will not even bother unless you specifically ask.
 
Will they have to take OFF BOTH headlight units in order to correct the gap that currently exists between the head light unit's black rubber gasket and the top part of the fender? Also, will they have to take OFF the bumper too to do the repair?

You just said that all the stuff is adjustable. Will it be easy for the body shop to do the adjustments? The reason why I am asking you this is because the body shop owner told me today that the head light unit was "STRAIGHT" and that the gaps between the head light gasket and the top of the front fender is "NORMAL". This came out of the mouth of a guy who has been specializing in doing body work on all types of Ford vehicles for the last 15 to 20 years. Why would he say something like this to me?
When he said this, I told him that there were NO GAPS between the headlight units and the front fenders "before" I brought my car into the body shop for repairs. After I told him this, he told me to bring my car back into his body shop on Monday morning so he can "screw around" with it in order to see whether or not he can fix it correctly. His statement scares me a little bit because I don't want him to screw anything up on my Mustang even more if he is unable or if he doesn't know how to adjust/repair and to make both head lights flush and snug with the top of the front fenders.
I would think that he knows how to fix this problem. The head mechanic whom I personally know very well at my local Ford dealer knows the body shop owner and he told me today that the body shop owner whom I am bringing the car to has excellent experience and that he "knows" how to fix it and that I should not worry. I just hope that the mechanic is right about this because I didn't like it when the body shop owner said that he needed to "screw around" with it to see whether or not he could fix the gap problem. I already paid $641.22 for all the body work that was done to my car.

Oh, by the way. The body shop will also replace my hood latch because the original one is all rusted and the spring does not work to lock my hood down when I shut the hood.
 
Kilgore Trout said:
Just let the body shop sort it out.
That's exactly what I am going to do here.

Also, when my car got hit, it made a 4" inch long crease in my front bumper in the part of the plastic next to the grill where the bumper curves upwards towards the hood when you look at the car directly from standing in front of the car. The body shop fixed the crease by using some sort of heat repair. The repair came out okay, but a little bit of the crease is still noticeable if you look at the bumper really close in the area where the original crease used to be. You can't really tell unless you run your eyes up and down or across the area where the damage used to be. You can still see a little bit of the original crease.
The location of the crease is in the right passenger part of the bumper where the bumper has a fork in it which forks upward towards the hood. That particular area is flat but it curves inward a little bit and then goes straight up towards the hood. There are 2 forks in the front bumper. I am talking about the fork which is on the passenger side of the bumper. The part which curves inward is where the crease used to be. It seems that when the body shop did the repairs, they weren't able to totally make the crease disappear because of the inward curve in the bumper. Do you think that this will pose as a problem? Will the crease show more as time goes by?
ALSO, do you think that a crease like this on the bumper is much harder to fix because it's located in a surface which is curved inwards? I think that if the surface of the bumper was flatter that I wouldn't be able to see any of the original crease that was made in the bumper.
What do you think. A body person's knowledge is needed here for this.