I have been defeated...

[firefighter736]

At least for today.

I spent the better part of the day trying to line up an aftermarket core radiator support and two inner fenders. I'm this close to losing my religion over this.

The passenger side inner fender is approx 3/4" longer than the orginal. The drivers side is 1/2". Even with this in consideration the radiator support is about 1/2" too far back to mount.


Any tips on where to start/what panel to put on first to make this a little less frustrating?

[pdxhall]

Yeah, that seems to be the problem with a lot of aftermarket parts. Who did you get them from and do you know the manufacturer? Always good to know who to stay away from.

[gearheads78]

I would always rather work on / repair original that deal with the non -fitting Chinese crap on the market today. You are just going to have to cut and weld back together as needed.

[brawley]

I had the same problem -one of my new inner fenders was 1/2" longer than the other one. If you look where the inner fender mounts to the firewall along the top, thats where my gap was larger than the other, we cut out a 1/2' section and slid the mounting bracket closer and rewelded. talk about creating problems-nothing on the front would line up straight until we figured this out.

[awbrown]

Well I dont think you have any choice but to shorten them , unless you can use them as patch panels to repair your old ones... What brand were they ??? I guess I will just repair my old ones or find some used ones ...I dont know why the aftermarket cant just make a patch panel for the front and one for the rear , the 2 problem areas....

[firefighter736]

I think they were Tri-Plus (but they were boxed as "Real Steel"). I don't want to out the company I bought them from because that isn't the intention of this thread. I haven't even contacted them about the problem yet and I have been 110% satisfied with them every time I've used them (which has been quite a bit).

I really needed to step away from it this evening and hopefully a new set of eyes on it tomorrow will yield better results. Instead of working back to front I think I'm going to try and work from the front (core support) to the back.

Again, what is really odd about this is that even though the inners are longer than the originals the core support actually lines up too far back (like the inners were shorter instead of longer). Another oddity is that the drivers side fender lines up on the front two holes and the rear two holes but not on the middle two holes - this shouldn't happen if the panel was off 1/2"-3/4".

[Clyde65]

I have found aftermarket body panels just wont work without alot of work, refitting and cutting and all that, your better off finding some original pieces and blasting/painting them, they will fit every time. I have had to do this and my dad also, we probably both spent over $1k on new replacement panels and found what your dealing with now.

[rustbucket66]

I feel your pain. I bought new everything, fenders, inners, rad support, and header panel. Should be easy, everything is new. Not the case. Inners bracket that bolts to the rad support nowhere near where it had to be. Drilled out spotwelds, realign, reweld, grinding, on and on. Some of it couldn't be put together at all. Rad support was 3/8 inch narrower from side to side (triplus), tried another manufacturer, the thing was thinner metal, half the weight, and short from side to side also. This one had a made in Taiwan sticker on it. Both were junk, you can't stretch them. Repaired my original, because everything connects to the rad support, critical piece. At least one piece is right. All I can say is, don't throw out your old stuff, you will need them to measure and compare to. Now you have me worried about the length of the fenders as I threw my old ones out long ago. I'm waiting for the cab from my bodyman to put on the chassis and try to install all this junk before painting. If you had to pay a bodyman to correct all this crap, it would cost thousands. I wish the General still had stock of all these parts, the aftermarket panels are full of suprises. What a headache....

[smilts60]

Im not to surprised that the after market stuff is off especialy considering ust how after market it is on 47 - 51 year old vehicles .. Doesnt mean it doesnt suck though.

[brawley]

the area circled is where this side is 1/2" longer than the other or at least on mine. could not get anything lined up.

[firefighter736]

Originally Posted by brawley

the area circled is where this side is 1/2" longer than the other or at least on mine. could not get anything lined up.

So what did you do here? I was about to ask this question as I noticed it was longer there, as well. I didn't know if it was a bad piece together or if they're all stamped taht way.


Here is my newest issue: I got everything lined up and most of the body lines are decent (not digging the cowl cover to fender gap, but I'll live) BUT the grill support on the passenger side is hanging out 1/2" at the top. It's super noticeable and I can't do anything with it. My only guess is that it's from the inner fender being long forcing the grill support out. Anybody have thoughts on how to fix this?

[awbrown]

I had the same problem with mine , as far as getting the fender and top of the grill structure to line up ,I had to move the holes ... as far as working with inner fenders that are too long ,you have no choice but to shorten them . I had to do this to an aftermarket quarter I used on my GTO,it was 1/2 inch too long .. I had to cut a pie shaped pc. out of it to get it to be the right length ....

[firefighter736]

Can somebody do a really quick measurement for me? I need the driver and passenger side inner fender length from the firewall mount to the core radiator support. Any help would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

[T Smith]

Measuring down the center of the inner fender "rail" where you indicated I get 36 5/8 from firewall to core support on each side...

[brawley]

Im not around my truck at the moment so im not sure the dimensions, but if they are not the same then it throws everything off. the area I circled on my pass. side was longer than the drivers , and from the pic. it looks like yours is too, I guess the stamping is wrong?? if you could call who you bought them from and find out if this is a common problem, maybe they could exchange it. I couldnt exchange mine because I bought them at the autofair. I cut out a 1/2" section where its circled and then had to reweld it back together from underneath, hard to explain without being there to point it out.

[firefighter736]

Thanks so much, T Smith!

My drivers side aftermarket inner is 36 3/4"
My passengers side aftermarket inner is 37 1/4"

That extra length on the passenger side HAS to be what's messing up the grill support.

Brawley, thanks for your response. I get what you're saying. I'm talking with the people who sold it to me... we'll see what they say tomorrow now that I have some comparable numbers to go by.