Nothing takes away more from a nice paint job then jacked up panel gaps. What is a good source to go to for learning how to align panels and fixing gaps? I butt welded my floor sections, 1/4 patch panels and various repair patches and just about have my 69 Charger ready to send off to the body man, but you got me thinking.
On my 70 Cuda, I can't stand the trunk lid to dutch-man panel gap isn't right, how did you fix that one?
Panel alignment is easy in theory, but a pain in reality. Start at the rear quarter panel. It is not adjustable. Hard body lines cannot be moved either. Line up the door body lines the the quarter body lines. Don't concern yourself with gaps right now. You just want the body lines straight. Close up the door to quarter gap to your desired gap. Keep the body line straight. Don't worry if the gap is straight, just close it up until the closest point is your desired gap. Move to the fender and do the same, hood, header, etc... The trunk should be aligned at the back to the rear of the quarters. Again you are lining up hard body lines that cannot move. You will then have to add material to the trunk surround, door edges, etc... I usually just tig weld an 1/8" rod to the edges and use a body file to cut it back to the desired gap. Some places may require cutting a sheet metal strip. My door bottoms needed between an 1/8" and a 1/4" filler strip. I just cut a tapered filler from sheetmetal and tig'd it in place. Your body guy should be able to handle all of this. It is very labor intensive, i.e. expensive, but important all edges are metal, not made with filler!!! It will chip!!
My trunk also had a huge gap that your talking about. I added material to the trunk lid, but you have to be careful on that gap because the trunk will hit the body when opening.
