54 chevy truck fitting front fenders

[hogfarm]

I'm over whelmed.The truck will not be done in time for the car show in The Dalles this weekend ,but i can still drive it there

[hogfarm]

And thanks for all your help.I thought retirement was going to be easy

[MARTINSR]

There are a lot of quick fixes, this is not one of them! You are going to have to have a dance with that front end, learning every step to "You should be dancing" isn't going to be easy, I have tried!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yAkkpbm_8E


Brian

[hogfarm]

After all the excalent advice that I recived here this is what I did.First I relized the front of the fenders don't move up and down,had to move hood.I took hinges off the hood and removed the latch pin,from there it was easy to get the hood right where I wanted it,closing the rear gap to about an 1/8 inch tightened the bolts and it was good,still need to lift rear of fenders a little but I have room to do that

[hogfarm]

I wanted to say I removed the hood springs,not hinges

[MiraclePieCo]

Originally Posted by hogfarm

First I relized the front of the fenders don't move up and down,had to move hood.

That is a simple yet profound bit of advice.

[MARTINSR]

Originally Posted by MiraclePieCo

That is a simple yet profound bit of advice.

The fenders do move up and down. There is room at the back with the giant holes in the cab, and by moving the rad support up and down.

Brian

[NEWFISHER]

After fighting several truck front ends trying to figure out a way to " cheat it" or adjust what had been installed by someone else, I finally take this approach and has worked every time, but takes a couple guys, lots of masking tape to protect paint edges etc.

Pull everything apart, core support, radiator, struts, fenders and hood.

Align hood to cowl, level etc first.

Install core support loosely

Install fenders and align them to hood, some adjustments ( elongating holes) might be necessary.

This takes an entire day with 2 guys. It's tedious but works

[Jemezcrusher]

Friend of mine who has been doing these trucks for years, swears that the best method is to assemble the front clip, then put that on the truck. Did that with my 55 sedan and will try it on the 50 3100 as it worked well on the 55

[dwcsr]

Originally Posted by Jemezcrusher

Friend of mine who has been doing these trucks for years, swears that the best method is to assemble the front clip, then put that on the truck. Did that with my 55 sedan and will try it on the 50 3100 as it worked well on the 55

from the pictures I've seen from GM this is how they did it at the factory. Its usually easier piece by piece if you don't have help