71 nova fender to door gap

[earntaz]

Super input -- thanks ... TAZ

[jasonL78]

Ok I read my post and yes it can be picked apart. Common sense would tell you not to place a jack under the rocker and just start jacking (bad choice of words on my part). You need to use the rocker pinch weld as your jacking point (as close to fender as possible) with a block of wood, something soft, so you don’t damage the paint or the area you are jacking against. The original post asked: what is the proper fender gap on Novas? He mentioned nothing about doing a frame off restoration? It sounded to me like he was having issues mounting a fender and having trouble adjusting the fender gap. In the past when I was trying to align a fender up on a nova (just a fender swap) the gap at the top was smaller than the bottom like a 1/8” difference. It drove me crazy. By just jacking in this area, it allows the body to rise and the bottom of the fender comes back towards the rocker and gives you a nice even gap. The reason you need to jack in this area is you just removed a part of the front structure of the car (the fender swap.) You basically created a weak link so to say. If the sub frame bushings are worn or sub frame bushing areas are not true this side of the car is going to sag and you will never get the new fender to line back up. Trust me been there, with multiple hours spent on fender and door gaps.
If you are doing a frame off restoration most likely you would have had all sheet metal on the car, gaps checked, and blocked out before paint. Even when I restored my nova I performed those steps, but when I bolted my sheet metal on, the sub frame was under the car. I still had to jack off the pinch welds to get my fender gaps back to where they were when I blocked it out while on the rotisserie.
I’m sure I didn’t put my Nova back together in steps the factory took. I needed my car to roll during assembly so all my front sheet metal was bolted together after the sub frame was bolted to the body. There are a lot of different ways to come to the same conclusion.
So if you are trying to align fenders on a sub frame car with the sub frame mounted you may need to relieve the pressure your 4 sub frame bushing are supporting that’s all I’m trying to say. If you have the drive line installed you would be surprised how much weight is being supported by those 4 sub frame bushings.