I am looking for some detailed pics on how the tail panel meets up with the rear cross member, trunk floor and the rear quarter panels. My trunk and tail panel were severely rust damaged and I am having trouble getting the replacement panels aligned. Any suggestions/insight/pictures is greatly appreciated.

Al

Anyone??

That's a tough one. Can you be more specific as to which views of the car you need to see, i.e. inside trunk, under car etc?

Do you have a field service manual. The body section in it has some chassis measurment pictures etc.

I just got the back half of my car done, not even in primer yet. Exactly what are you looking for??

Here you are Al. These photo's are from a 70 Hemi Cuda body that I restored recently. Replaced the entire trunk floor and right side trunk extension as well as the right side quarter bottom and misc. These pics are after the old material has been removed and the new ready to go so placement is correct. I mean there is only so much room for everything to fit and once you get the trunk floor in there it is pretty much set where it goes. Maybe these will help. JC.

Another:

Again:

More:

I will post some pics tomorrow night as I am out of town. One of the questions is in the gaps between the tail panel and the rear quarter panel. Some cars you can fit your pinkie finger in that gap and others it would be hard to stick a paint stick in there.

The other question is how low is the side marker light opening in relation to the bottom of the trunk?

Thanks JC. That gives me a good look at how the corner pieces fit together.

Al

From this angle you can see where the side marker opening is in relation to the trunk floor. JC.

OK guys, here are some close up pics of one of the question areas. It seems like the rear side marker light opening is really low in relation to the trunk floor...





Al

Here is another pic of the rear extension meeting up with the floor and you can see the seem is tight...

Look at this orignal for reference, it's close too but installed as it was from the factory. I think yours is too tight!

That was my thinking but I can't really figure out how to adjust the position. Everything measures OK and all the gaps are tight. Maybe pics of some other cars will give me some idea where my panels are not aligned right.

Question for anyone....Are the side marker lights level with each other?

For example, if I stretched a string from the front marker light to the back, would that string be level? This would tell me if the marker light openings were punched too low in the replacement rear quarter panels ...

I don't know about being level- but on my 71 cuda'- original sheet metal car, I had a hard time removing and replacing the side marker assembly on one of the sides- it was tight as you are showing, and has never been hit either. What brand of quarters are you using- I think anything but AMD requires some "massaging"

Rust free '70 'Cuda survivor

Everything is AMD and I must say that the AMD tail panel, although it looks nice does not fit well...neither of my tail light housings fit...not even close. I went back to the original tail panel and used the AMD as a source for my damaged areas.

thats why I always try to rescue the original panels, or use repro panels to fix up the bad parts on an original panel.

Bt dont sweat it, when you are replacing that much sheetmetal you always have to massage the parts some to make everything align and fit properly. It is always useful not to dispose the old rusty parts, but keep them to compare measurements against the repro sheetmetal parts and modify the repro parts as necessary to make sure they fit like original. I always compare and measure stuff like those sidemarker openings to make sure they are at the right spot on the repro panels...same deal for flanges, bodylines, contours etc. They always need some work to be just like the original panels.