Tom, your efforts look great to me. Remember the AIM was a guide only, getting it looking so you can live with it as ALL that matters. At Carlisle they judged my hood to be too high in relation to one fender, so it truly is only a matter of opinion. Also try the front bumper to be sure the panels look right. Mine all fit well, they painted the car, front bumper looked way out of whack, they had to replace (and repaint) the lower valance to get the bumper to sit correct. Very interesting thread.

I am sorry, I just have to bust them a bit to show you how much I care.
You are doing a phenominal job and if I buy you a plane ticket, will you do mine?
The top of your door looks fabulous, mine should be that lucky.
I feel it on the hood opening, we had that discussion. The trunk is fun as well, but the hood is the worst.
I have worked on a lot of cars in my life and there are not many that have this set up, with the square opening and four sides to fit.
Keep up the great work and I promise I will join in soon. I am doing some remodeling in the house and am devoting my time to that at the moment. Good job

Yes.. what guys don't realize is that the hood is caged in because of the front header panel. I remember working on my bosses 70 Chevelle.. what a piece of cake in that regard.. you throw the fenders on and line them up to the door.. then you bolt on the hood and just start opening and closing the gaps.. You cannot do that with our cars because the header creates a fixed dimension..

well... after testing two original headers in hopes they were shorter and that was the issue I'm sad to report that wasn't it.. also the little blue cars measurements are exactly the same.. Good thing I did because after careful examination I found the NOS header has much less crisp lines and also a slightly different understructure.. who'd have known... I'm using the original

Anyhow it came to me in a dream and I finally decided to take the passengers door off and check something ( sucks ).. come to find out the upper hinge caged plate was welded in wrong and won't allow the threaded hinge bolt plate to slide to spec..Here I am palm slapping the door out as far as it will do when there should be another whole 1/8" of play

Out comes the cut off wheel

Fender now moved out ever so slightly.. door needs to go back on

The nose it is safe to say is as fit and aligned as the sheet metal can be.. The next step would be to mark all the waves and dents and edges of the metal ( metal working ). Not happening this season

Here is the header difference I noticed... the lack of straight and crimped bends cannot be expressed in pictures.. You need to see it with your naked eye sorry

Also: where I wrote " peak " is the crimp peak that is WAY too tall and the upper grill molding will not sit flush unless you grind it off...curious

I took a break and moved to the trunk: Gary spoke of some issues.. I don't have too many but still need to hag the right 1/4 off.. Mine sits low in both quarters so I picked a shim that seems close to the height difference and installed it behind the hinge bolt closest to the front of the car.
Notice how badly the Fisher boys lead seemed the 1/4 at the radius... Geez

Yes.. Chevy absolutely put shims behind the hood hinges AND the trunk hinges.. Things got real good real fast

Close up of shim guessing

Walla! Is that how you spell whalla?
Maybe its Ta Da

Tom are you sure your door issue where you elongated the holes wasn't because of a bent door hinge? Also with the trunk lined up perfect now will it change height with the weatherstrip installed?

Damn, your drinking some Eastwoods!!! Your the Man.