[tdavidl]

#4 door to fender, doesn't look all that bad on this (passenger) side

[Dens71TA]

Tim, that car is shimmed way WRONG! There should be about two shims on the upper radiator support bushings. With that many shims the nose should be about 1/2" below the fenders.

I would suggest you have somebody help you remove the hood(4 bolts.) Put a soft blanket on the roof of the car and set the hood there. Since you already have the valance panel removed its only a matter of disconnecting the headlight wires and four bolts to remove the nose. Then remove all the shims and bolts and start off from square one. Put four washers between the lower radiator support bushing and see how things line up with that.

Here are the body gap tolerances for '71 Firebirds.

[tdavidl]

dennis, as i mentioned, there are other fender shims in other places as well. i'll go on your suggestion & remove the hood & nose. i'll remove all but 2 shims from the upper bushing & put 4 on the lower as you suggest. what about the shims shown on lower fender ? should i remove them during this process & see where i stand ? leave the others alone as well during this 1st step ?

tim

[Dens71TA]

I would remove all the fender bolts and just let the fenders hang there. Then start aligning and shimming. There shouldn't be any shims on the top fender bolts at the radiator support but a couple is acceptable at the bottom.

If you want to give me a call let me know and I'll PM you my number.

[tdavidl]

thanks dennis, you have mail, also let me know the best time to call (your time) so i don't interupt your work, sleep, or whatever, we have a one hour time difference, don't we ?

tim

[soupman]

Tim-
I have been through this before. You will probably keep "chasing" the shims around the front end. What has happenend is the bumper horns are probably off. These are the supports the bumper mounts to. Since I have completely assembled these cars before, I set those up first. Not sure what to tell you in your case. That would be alot of work to correct.

[tdavidl]

thanks soup, i'll keep posting w/updates. i've never had to assemble, or dis-assemble for that matter, one of these cars so i shall learn as i go. it looks like my wish of having a simple solution once i fixed the core support mounts will not be granted

[tdavidl]

well, i don't have the hood on yet but everything is lined up. the trick seems to be using the nose braces (bumper horns as soupman calls them) as the last thing to adjust. at least that's what worked for me. after you loosned them from the frame there's alot of up\down-back\front play in them to adjust the nose to the fenders.

[soupman]

Glad I could help. Since you sent me some pictures of the trunk that showed the brackets I was looking for, I am trying to return the help.

Chris

[Formulabruce]

The original bushing sets has a steel "sleeve" in the middle which sets the distance and prevents them from being squished. this also alows a 35-40 ftlb tourque and a stable , yet cushioned support.
The washers on my 71 had 2 on bottom and one on top of bushings, ALL underneath the core support, as shown above in the great pics, the paddle nut is shouldered and inside the subframe. I was told by Ames to use the fan shroud to fan alignment FIRST when reassembling. This is accomplished by the washers (up and down)AND the core support holes are SLOTTED (lots are rotted here) left to right to allow side to side movement. thats my 2 cents after looking at the crash sheets, and an original car

[tdavidl]

i like how you operate forumlabruce, very efficient, gets all his replies in at once !

seriously, thanks for the tip on the fender\allignment issue, even though it's already back together, it's a nice confirmation that i took the right approach. i made sure the shroud was aligned AFTER i started her up & heard a terrible noise (fan rubbing shroud).