{"id":84625,"date":"2022-04-01T07:22:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T14:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=84625"},"modified":"2022-04-01T07:22:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T14:22:22","slug":"stuff-they-never-tell-you-pre-fitting-parts-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/stuff-they-never-tell-you-pre-fitting-parts-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuff They Never Tell You:  Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"jetpack-slideshow-noscript robots-nocontent\">This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p><div id=\"gallery-84625-1-slideshow\" class=\"jetpack-slideshow-window jetpack-slideshow jetpack-slideshow-black\" data-trans=\"fade\" data-autostart=\"1\" data-gallery=\"[{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-Lead-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84635&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Click Here to Begin Slideshow \\n\\nWhen building a car (or having a car built), one thing you never hear about is the mock-up stage, or pre-fitting of parts.  The truth is, most high-end cars (for example, well built street rods or full-blown customs or even high-end restorations) are built this way.  Essentially, the various bits and pieces are tediously hand fitted to the car while it\\u2019s either in bare metal or covered in initial epoxy primer. Then the range of components are massaged to fit and when everything is perfect, the thing is blown apart for final body and paint. That\\u2019s why, when you examine these cars carefully, gaps are close to symmetrical and the panels fit nicely.  They look great.  But honestly, Detroit never fit their stuff this well.  \\n\\nFair enough. It looks fabulous.  But if you pay a shop to do this work, you might be a wee bit shell-shocked when you see the final bill.  The reason is there\\u2019s just a lot of going back and forth fitting pieces until it\\u2019s right. It simply takes time.  But you can do much of the tedium at home, without special equipment. \\n\\nMocking up components doesn\\u2019t have to be painful. But you might have to move some pieces around and fiddle with them in order to make them fit precisely.  Trust us, it\\u2019s a whole bunch easier (and less painful) to do it now rather than when the car is painted.  And while we don\\u2019t have room to lay out each and every detail, what follows is a look at some of the basics.  \\n\\n\\n\\nClick Here to Begin Slideshow&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-1-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84626&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;When you\\u2019re working on a car, it\\u2019s a very (very!) good idea to roll the car outside on a regular basis.  Most home shops (ours is a good example) are basic two car affairs.  It\\u2019s tough to get a good perspective on something when you\\u2019re two feet away.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-2-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84627&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Fitting things like the tail lights (which by the way are reproductions) and the back bumper can sometimes prove troublesome.  As it turns out, the reproduction tail lamps were over the top great in terms of quality and fit.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-3-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84628&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;On the other hand, the repaired bumper (which was fixed after an accident) took some tweaking to get right.  There\\u2019s a small amount of movement on the bumper by way of the mount brackets (each end of the bumper) along with a small amount of movement on the chassis where the brackets are attached.  By using the available adjustment (or probably more correct, the factory \\u201cslop\\u201d) to our advantage, we managed to get the fit right on target.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-4-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84629&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;We rolled the car outside again to double check bumper, taillight and fender fit.  As pointed out earlier, it\\u2019s good to have some distance between you and the car to \\u201ceyeball\\u201d stuff.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-5-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84630&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Some things such as the fenders we installed and removed multiple times (as you\\u2019ll soon see).  Yes, it\\u2019s a pain but it\\u2019s the only way to get things right.  Also, in our case, the right rear quarter was replaced. This gave the opportunity to double check fit.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-6-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84631&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;Heater delete pieces are one example of why we needed to remove and replace a fender more than once.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-7-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84632&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;But let\\u2019s start the beginning: Fisher Body never drilled the holes on the blower motor side for the round delete plate.  We had to do that with an eye toward symmetry.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-8-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84633&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;The big plate and the firewall both need a bit of \\u201cfine tuning\\u201d (hand bending) so that they conform to one another.  The heater box flange had to be bent up and it also meant small incremental bending, hand tweaking and pulling of both the plate and the firewall by way of fasteners.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;},{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.racingjunk.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/Mock-9-min-scaled.jpg&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:&quot;84634&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;Pre-Fitting Parts Part 1&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;The heater delete set up finally came together. With the fender installed, we could get a better idea of what it all would look like completed.&quot;,&quot;itemprop&quot;:&quot;image&quot;}]\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageGallery\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>When building a car (or having a car built), one thing you never hear about is the mock-up stage, or pre-fitting of parts. But can you do any of this yourself? Yes you can!<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":84635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5011,11,3470,4879],"tags":[8971,220,8970,8972,321],"class_list":["post-84625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chassis-suspension","category-how-tos","category-news","category-slideshow","tag-mock-ups","tag-mods","tag-pre-fitting-parts","tag-project-builds","tag-wayne-scraba","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Mock-Lead-min-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-m0V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84637,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84625\/revisions\/84637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}