Hey guys. I just completely disassembled my 69 special deluxe for paint and just got it reassembled and am having a heck of a time understanding where I'm going wrong with these panel gaps or if I'm just being hyper-critical. I have had to replace the driver side fender and the hood but the rest of the panels are original as far as I know. Below are comments/questions on gaps that I feel make it look like a dang clown car. I know I may be doomed to embarrassment given that I didn't fix this all before the paint. I'm just really disappointed with how everything shaped up after paint and reassembly. The door gaps around the body look pretty solid to me. Even all the way around. Closes nice. Window frames fit pretty tight I don't think anything is wrong there. The fender/door gap on the passenger side is maybe slightly larger than the driver because something about the top seems to crunch into the door when it's adjust back slightly. Not sure if there's anything to be done there. The hood seems to hit up a bit high. I've got all new bumpers on the fenders and under the rear of the hood and on the rad support. I had to trim the fender wedge bumpers down because it would just sit way up on the bumpers preventing it from closing. It seems straight to follow the fender line but just doesn't go down flush. I'm not sure there's much I can do about this either? I had to create a new hood latch for this car for my intercooler mount in the grill area so I'm probably going to have to blame this on myself. THIS IS WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND. The hood/fender gap is SUPER tight but straight on the passenger side and is in a v shape on the driver side somehow where it's tight in the rear but opens up near the front??? I don't get how this is possible. It's like the rad support needs to be shifted left or right but that would mess up other gaps? Or the driver side rad support/fender bolt mount point needs to be ch0pped/welded and pulled in? Idk this just seems bizarre given that the fender/door alignment is good. I can't see how I would adjust the hood on one side or the other without having it begin to hit on of the corners. Would love any thoughts on this. Here's another puzzling one. The front hood/fender alignment is spot on on the passenger side but not the driver side? EVEN THOUGH, the rear ears of the hood over the firewall align with the fenders. It's so odd? like the driver fender is somehow shorter than it should be or something. As a bonus my grill has a bit of an odd gap up to the hood but I'm not as worried about this given the vertical alignment on the fender/hood makes it seem like the hood is still a bit high. Not sure what adjustment is to be done on the grill given that it just has to bolts that go straight into the rad support.
1st place to start at this point (if you haven't) is loosen everything & go through the alignment procedure in the Chassis Service manual. It's very good/methodical. If you don't have one, it can be downloaded (any section or all) @ teambuick.com
And I did reread the whole section and came to the conclusion that the V shape on one side of the hood is just due to the fact that my driver side being flush but my passenger side being slightly wider past the door due to the issue I was having where my door would open to hit the top of the fender, would mean that In need to open adjust the driver side out at the rear to similarly to ruin the flush fit of the fender/door gap but open the gap on hood/fender to make it parallel which sucks but maybe that's how it was intended? The thing that's driving me insane is this section since it states it SHOULD be correct but I also don't know what it's trying to say in order to fix the problem. Like here it says if the rears are correct, it SHOULD be parallel which it's not. but then goes on to say if one is long and one is short, it may be necessary to shift the front end sheet metal but mild cases shouldn't need this. I'm not sure if my case is considered "mild" but it looks horrible to me. Because my rear hood ears line up with the fenders quite well. But I have one side that seems slightly too long and one side that seems slightly too short Is that direction suggesting I torque the rad support in some way to try and elongate one side and shorten the other? The fenders seem very rigid in this particular section of the car so I don't know how the length of the fender can be adjustable in this area. The fact that it lines up in the rear but not in front just makes it seem like there was variability in the manufacturing and maybe that was considered acceptable at the time? Or maybe I'm an idiot and don't understand how to read a manual. Do y'all know what that section is trying to say?
Loosen the core support bushings on either side of the radiator and shift the core support to the right. Tighten down while holding.
Seems simple enough! One other question about the core support bushings though, how do you tighten them down with a third hand when everything is assembled? Since it's a bolt through bushings into a nut, it has to be held from both sides so it seems like you'd have to have someone pushing on the rad support to provide the adjustment while you have one hand in the engine bay on the bolt and one under the car with the ratchet and a deep well socket going through the frame into the bottom, or is there some simpler way? Or are my bushings just too worn and should the rubber fit tight enough against the bolt to hold it while only the nut be secured?
It's a 2 person job sometimes. Sometimes I can get stuff to stay, or I can wedge a piece of wood in place somewhere.
I have the same issue with the hood on my 69 GS 400. I just live with it. However, I only had the car for 3-4 years. I have only tried messing with the hood hinge bolts. Eh good enough for me!
Well good to know I'm not the only one. I'll probably give it a week and see if it annoys me enough to rip it all apart again and regap everything. Out of curiosity, has anyone tried loosening some/all of the fender bolts with the hood attached? I have a feeling that'd be a terrible idea but I really only need to shift the passenger just a hear to cleanup that V on the hood gap and if it's possible without removing the hood but also without damaging anything with the extra weight of the hood, that'd be neat
They're originals that haven't been rebuilt but I just cleaned them up painted them and lube them up. They move smoothly, no creaks or sounds, and hold well. Only one had a bit a play but the other seemed reasonably tight. I didn't figure that'd affect how it sits in the gaps though right? Hood is held tight when installed and doesn't flop side-to-side when opening/closing.
I went through similar issues. Sometimes you can't see that the hinges are worn out until they're disassembled. I sent mine in for a rebuild and that took care of a lot of alignment issues in my situation on my GSX. I just wanted to have them rebuilt and start fresh to eliminate any more further frustration. Hay...love your 69...my favorite year! Great color too!
