[HO455]

While under the WMB doing the mounts I noticed the fenders had no bolts (and thus no shims) in the bottom inside location. I had noticed that sometimes the door hit the fender when you opened it. I had hoped the new body and core support mounts would solve the problem. I started on the passenger side by loosening the fender and wheel well so I could align the fender to the door. This is when I found that in addition to the fenders lower back bolt, 4 of the bolts in the wheel well were missing, as were the 2 bolts that go perpendicular to the chassis into the upper part of the core support. Plus the bolt that goes forward into to the upper grille piece was backed out 1/4" (and no shims) . No wonder the fender moved around! The PO said he had replaced the fenders with aftermarket units. It took me 2.5 hours to get the fender aligned with the door, shimmed up and locked down. Then it was off to the other side where I found only 2 bolts in the wheel well missing along with one stripped out. All the core support bolts were there, but the bolt to the grille was also loose and needing shims. After fighting with the bottom inside bolt and shim pack for at least 30 minutes I realized there must be a bigger issue. I just could not get the shims to work right, every other time I moved the fender and tried to snug it up it would twist all wrong and I would have to back the bolt off and try again. So I removed all the bolts on the rear portion of the fender and pried it out to see what the issue was. See the photo for a better idea of what I am trying to explain. At some time in the past a sliver of metal got pulled out of the hole for the bottom bolt and this would not allow the shims to sit flat thus causing the fender to twist when the bolt was tightened. OK, over the years things happen, maybe the reason this fine rig has had the fenders, hood, and grille replaced was possibly there was an unauthorized contact with an immovable object at some some point, however that was never discussed during the transaction. Moving on, I was able to make a wood block to hold the fender out far enough to get a rotary grinder in and remove the sliver. Now we are to the place where my head wants to explode. It would have been a 30 second job with a 4" grinder when the fender was off! Not 10 minutes with the rotary gringer on your back underneath it with no good angle to get at it and your shirt neck open to catch the metal silvers. But I guess they figured there was no reason to fix it since they weren't going to put the bolt back in. ÀAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG! Some peoples children. I tried to find solace in the fact that since I had access to the area I could Por15 as much as I could reach. Did that and spent the rest of the day scuff sanding the under side of the hood. The next day (had to let the Por-15 dry) with that bolt issue solved, I found I that I had a new issue. The reason there were 2 bolts on this fender were missing is that the fender holes didn't line up with the wheel well holes, I'm pretty sure this also caused the other bolt to be stripped. (If it doesn't fit, force it) so I got things as close as possible and drilled new holes. I ended up having to move the door around to get the body lines to line up in a reasonable fashion. Basically I had to split the difference to minimize the misalignments at the crease below the wing window and the lower crease between the wheel wells. The aftermarket driver's side fender lines are not as good as the passenger side lines. Then more fun times trashing my fingers sanding the hood, but now its ready. I also pulled what was left of the grille out for disposal.