KICK PANEL... DOOR PANEL....REAR SIDE PANEL FITMENT

[DAVEN1256]

I am test fitting my kick panel.... to door panel....to rear seat side panel fitment after having had new quarter panels, new door skins, new fenders, and new inner and outer rockers put on my car.........It is a '68 coupe with the deluxe interior.

I am having an interference problem with the lower half of my door panels and my kick panels binding when the doors are closed.

Maybe I should have done this before all the final panel fitting was done on the side of the body but the quarter panels, doors, and fenders have all been fitted to each other and there is no going back on that now. This is a probem I didn't see coming.

The interior hasn't been in this car since 1988 and I have no reference pictures of how all three interior panels fit together as far as gaps or clearences.

The rear side panels are back as far as they will go and the windlaces are pushed tight against the pinchwelds of the quarter panels. The door shells are original to the car and the door panels are located in all their original holes. There is an eighth inch clearance between the top of the door panels and the windlaces. The kick panels are original to the car. I don't have them screwed in but I can't push them back any further.

When I close the doors, the upper half of the door panels slide behind the kick panels but the lower half of the door panels binds against the kick panels, trying to push the kick panels forward. And since the kick panels can't go any further forward, they start to bow.

I am attaching some pictures of how all these panels fit togther. Hopefully somome can tell me what's right or wrong with the way these panels all fit together and a solution on how to improve or fix the binding problem.

                     Thanks......Dave

[firstgenaddict]

Am I hearing that you can't get the door panels to fit when the outer panels are in alignment? thus you are saying your quarter panels are set to close to the center line of the body?

[DAVEN1256]

I have no idea where.... or what the problem is.  I don't think the quarter panel position is an issue. At the pinchweld where the forward edge of the quarter panel connects to the inner structure, the quarter panel doesn't extend extend past the inner structure which is original. That being the case, I don't think the the side panel can be pushed forward of it's original position.

I was worried with the aligning of the quarter panel, door and fender that the door got moved too far forward. But the gap between the top of the door panel and the windlace on the rear side panel is only 1/8 inch.

Is the forward edge of the door panel and the edge of the kick panel supposed to have some overlap or should there be a gap between them?

Can anyone comment from my photos if the relationship between the door panel and the kick panel .....and between the door panel and and rear side panel looks correct is is something obviously wrong?

[KevinW]

Kick panel is first, align door panel to fit against kick panel without rubbing.  then check rear gap.  if the door panel is rubbing on door panel, you can trim 1/8" or 1/4" from the pinchweld to gain more clearance.  you can also trim the cardboard backing of the interior qtr panel to gain more space, just center the window cranks in the interior panels to find the optimal locations.