Coupe Body, Hood and Door Fitment Sequence

[TTimmy]

Hi all, I am starting work fitting the body to my coupe and looking for input regarding a good sequence for fitting all the bits together. I was not able to find anything comprehensive in the forum; but that might be a shortcoming on my part. Anyway, I would appreciate any guidance that you can provide!


My current plan of attack:

1. Main body - Fit per the manual
2. Main body - Adjust wheel openings for good fit around tires
3. Hood - Rough fit such that rear of wheel opening aligns to the pontoon while only trimming off absolute minimum at rear of hood such that it drops into place against the body
4. Pontoon supports/wheel well aluminum- Install supports so the pontoons are fixed in place
5. Doors - Rough fit so that they fit into their openings
6. Hood - attach hinges and address the gap between the lower horizontal portion of the hinge and the fiberglass. I'm thinking of some type of epoxy "shim" to fill the gap.
7. Hood - Adjust wheel openings for good fit around tires, as much as might be possible
8. Hood - fit alignment pins
9. Hood - Fit Gas struts
10. Fine tune hood and door fitment
11. Gap all pieces and necessary

Also, have others found windshield, side windows or rear window installation to have a material impact on the body/hood/door alignment? If so, any advice?

[Namrups]

I followed the sequence in the manual. In doing so when I got to hanging the doors, my doors would not swing fully open. I had to move my body as far forward as I could get it. I would hang the doors second so if you do have to change the body location it won't screw up your hood.
Even though it is not a glaring issue, unless I point it out, my hood is also offset to the passengers side by 1/2" to get it to fit with the body correctly. You will also find that when you mount the gas strut supports on the hood it will change the fit.

[edwardb]

Going to disagree with Scott (Namrups) on this one. My biggest regret on my build is I did the doors last and once I finally got the hood to fit properly, it pushed the main body down enough to really mess up the gaps between the front of the doors and the hood. That after I had trimmed the doors to fit. I built the front edges back up as much as I felt was safe. But the gaps are still too wide. If I ever build another one, the doors would be last. Having said that, the one constant about the whole process is everything tends to interact. Fix one thing, another goes out. Repeat often. I found the manual instructions for setting the body, starting with the rear mounts, to be pretty accurate. But everything else I had to mess with a lot. Takes patience and suggest not locking anything in until you've been around it multiple times and are happy with the overall results. Life will be easier when you realize (and accept...) that the hood is asymmetrical and slightly off to one side as Scott mentions. I talked about the body fitting a lot in my build thread. Link below. FWIW.