fender gaps/alignment

[OrrieG]

I can help with the top pic. If you are not using the fenders that came with the truck you may need to massage the cowl under neath where the inner vertical bracket sits. When they started assemblying the TF trucks they found that the bracket stuck out too far and hit the side cowl at the top rounded part. Rather that retool the doors or cowl they jus issued the assemblers a big hammer and had them dent the cowl until the fender fit. My fenders had never been off of my truck and I wondered why that area was so beat up. Luckily I found a thread from a guy that had taken a lot of trouble to fix his, even though you never see it, only to have to beat them back to pull the fender in. I have a photo but could not find it. If your fenders came from a different truck they may not of required as much relief or the guy on the line was feeling lazy.

As for the rest of the gaps all the farmers cared about was the doors staying shut. It seems you can get three good and there is always the fourth that is bad. I don't worry about it but there are plenty of threads about grinding, cutting, adding material to get them right.

something else that will show up is the back of the lower front fender is longer and mounts below the sill that it is supposed to line up with. If you shim up the fender, the top is out of alignment. Some repop fenders also have the wrong radius, you have to notch and re weld the inner brace to get it to fit.