Hey guys, you might have read my post in the welcome section, if not, heres the question: I am putting all new panels on the front of my car; fenders, inners, core supp, header panel, lower panel and hood. I got all the parts from a guy here local, so I could save on the shipping. All the parts are OER from classic, or NPD and the hood and inners are from Dynacorn. Lets start with the fenders, I tried to put the inners on the fenders and none of the holes lined up. Got mad, drank a beer, and gave up. Next day after doing some research I put the two together and drilled new holes, got them fitting OK. Did the other side, same results. Temporarily put them on car and put the top header panel on, holes didn't line up, actually they did, but the panels weren't flush like they should be on top where the fender meets the header panel. So I tried the lower panel and WOW its horrible. It lines up at the nose in the front, but the side need to be bent something fierce to meet with the fenders correctly. I know theres got to be a technique of some sort to do this. I understand its going to take patience, but man for what I spent on all these parts I am very, very, dissappointed in the quality of these panels.
Can anyone offer any advice on how or where to start? I am not a body man, but am mechanically inclined. And now I'm determined to make it right. Another thing that made me mad, was that all these "quality parts", have "made in Taiwan" written on them.:noway: Sorry for the long post:)

Edit: didnt realize it was a 73 but Quality in Taiwanese is Quanity, the labels got typoed = P

Yeah, forgot to mention its a 73. At least they're written in english.

You didn't mention is the hood on you wil need it to be on to check it diagonaly I would have a die grinder available a block of wood and a hammer.You may also have to do some welding on the header to get it to meet the fenders....

Welcome to after market sheet metal hell. You will need a good reaming tool. Eastwood sells nice carbides in different shapes. A welder, body filler and some imagination. you pretty much have to do whatever it takes to make the parts fit together the way you want. Pre fit EVERYTHING before you paint. Including grill,moldings,headlight bezels ect. I got everything fitting the best i could. That includes rebending fender opening to fit headlight bezels properly.welded 1/8 inch rod to fender and door edges and ground them down to get nice gaps. blocks of wood under the hood edges while pushing down to make hood edges even with fenders. ream fender holes to allow enough adjustment. After all that I had to skim the font flip (less the hood) with filler to make everything perfect. Oh yeah,buy a box of shims too. Have fun!

Good advice. Whenever I've had to fit repro parts my die grinder is my best friend.

Man this sounds like a lot of work, so do whatever it takes to make the panels fit nicely and I guess I start with lining up the hood and try to fit the fenders and front panels to it?

First line up the doors. Get the door to quarter gap at about 3/8" - 1/4". Then line up the fenders to the doors. The add the hood and the header. It helps to keeps the bolts loose on the front end so you can move stuff around. (not the doors,once you get them set leave them tight.)Then tighten them when stuff starts lining up.

Sounds like a plan, the doors are already lined up good and the inner fenders are already mounted to the fenders and somewhat in place. Its going to be a slow process, this 100+ degree heat down here makes for a hot garage to work in. I'll keep posting.

Thanks a bunch!

I hear you.When I lived in Louisiana my progress was really hindered by the heat.http://www.clipartof.com/images/emoticons/xsmall2/1222_hot_and_sweating_smiley.gif
76 and breezy here today.

Man I miss those days, I moved here from the subs of Chicago about 13 years ago, and man I miss those nice days. Down here, its 90-100 degrees from April till about October. But one nice thing is the winter!

Well, I'm goin at it from another angle....I took the front clip off the car again and now I'm building it on horses in the garage instead of on the car. Seems to be working a lot better. Even though everything lines up like crap, Its a lot easier to acces the areas where I have to drill new holes and line things up. I just hope it goes on the car relatively easy and lines up with the doors ok. As soon as I fugure out how, I will post a pic.

follow my directions here to post pics, so you can start uploading them to the interwebs!

http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=164920

Going to try to post pic with your directions......
http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq212/smiti7/73cam.jpg, Man thats easy, Thanks a lot!:beers: I'll get some more pics ASAP. This is only one I had. I'll see if I can find the one of the car smashed.

Here's the car when I bought it. Sad part is when I found the car, it wasn't wrecked. I lost it on a Wed night because someone put a deposit on it before I could get to it. They had till Friday to pay in full, but Thurs. night, the owner got in a wreck and the person who left the deposit backed out. The rest is history. I'll get some more recent pics.

http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq212/smiti7/smashedcamaro73-3.jpg

http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq212/smiti7/Smashedcamaro73.jpg

http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq212/smiti7/Smashedcamaro73-2.jpg

http://i449.photobucket.com/albums/qq212/smiti7/73cam.jpg

the car was trying to tell them, put a split bumper on me put a split bumper on me!, and looks like the bumperettes didnt work