[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Agree with Jerry.

The only modification I would make to his recommendation is that you can attach the wheelhouse inners to the fender and install them as an assembly. That's how it was done in the assembly plant at those locations where the front end was assembled to the car "piecemeal" (ie, one fender at a time).

Also - leave the rad supt bolts and top (vertical) fender bolts loose, to allow the radiator support/front fenders to shift side-to-side. This will allow you to fit the hood (hood to fender gaps). Once you've done that then you can torque and seat all the fasteners.

K

I was the foreman on the line where the fenders were installed at Flint Truck Assembly.

We had two guys - one at the front and one at the rear.

They would swoop the fender off the carrier (it was upside down on the carrier) and into position, jammed rearward against some spacers on the door to set the gap. The guy at the front would hold the nose of the fender up while the guy at the back drove the upper vertical bolt partway (left loose). Once it is hanging the guy at the front would drive the nose bolts (about 7 of them, 5/16" with small washers) and the guy at the rear would open the door and drive the horizontal bolt (tight). After that is done he would take a big stick and pry rearward off the tire on the rear dogleg portion while the guy in the pit drove the bottom fastener.

Line rate was 60 jobs/hour, or one completed vehicle every minute. That gave them about 45 seconds to do all of the above (plus some minor wire routing).

I watched them do about 900,000 vehicles this way (or about 1.8 million fender installs).

K

[Keith Seymore]

A couple thoughts about shims (because you are probably going to need to do some shimming):

1 - we used to shim to trends, not individual vehicles. So the guys would tape a packet of shims together and run that all day until the repair area at the end of the line would yell at us. At that point we would create a new setup and run that until something required a change. There just wasn't time to stop and look at every truck.

You will want to set it on there and observe and adjust. Also - I have taken a front end off and put it back on, only to find it needed different shims than what was just on there. So just because you took them off and preserved the locations doesn't mean that's what it will want going back together.

2 - shims can go under the rear vertical bolt (to set your up/down at the door), behind the upper horizontal bolt (sets in/out at the top) and behind the bottom bolt (sets in/out at the bottom). We never shimmed at the front although I suppose a person could.

K