Bib + fender alignment (2 Viewers)

[Stevens79FJ40]

1st you gotta set the tub and tighten the body mounts so they're compressed. I think the frt mounts are different from the others. I never removed my tub. I set my hood and bib 1st. Centered the hood and adjust the cowl to hood gap as best i could. The frame is slanted where the bib bolts, so you can adjust that gap. Did you find these threads.

What order to put together front end FJ40

I have put a lot of cars and trucks back together from frame offs, but never an FJ40. Everything has "Tricks" for order of assembly and alignment. I don't know the FJ40 "Tricks" I have the body on the frame, all the brakes, steering, linkages hooked up, engine and trans are in. I have not...

forum.ih8mud.com

Hood overhang

So, I have already slotted the brace where it attaches to the frame on the NOS fender to get the driver side fender down approximately 1/4" due to the bib sitting higher to the cowl. Am I getting too critical with the hood overhang to the bib/fender. I have about a 3/16 overhang on the driver...

forum.ih8mud.com

Thanks for the replies
I agree that once the boost mounts are snug the tub will sink down slightly. The only issue is I lose the ability to adjust alignment at that point.

Looking at several posts, I feel my bib hinge is in pretty much the same location on the frame. If I move it any further up the slanted frame then the fenders stick out past it.

It’s almost as if the fenders need to move back towards the cowl. There isn’t much movement due to the slotted mounts having little play front to back. Mostly up and down unless I make them(the slotted holes) larger.

But now that I have the hood on I could remove the fenders, align the bib and see if the can get the fenders to fit in after.

Being that this is almost 50 years old, likely was never perfect and everything might be twisted/tweaked I’m not expecting perfection. But it needs to be better that what I have now!

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

Looks like the front of the Left fender needs to be raised to pivot it clockwise some, and that will do two things: raise the hood to level and bring the nose rearward to the hood leading edge. The Fender to cowl should look OK once it is rotated slightly.

Are you saying the driver side fender? I would agree, I kinda need it to pivot, the front at bib up, rear at cowl down. That’s just a limited amount of rotation with the slotted mounts. I tried lifting the fender with a jack under the front market light and cracked my new paint. So…not doing that again

 

[MOTOV8R]

Are you saying the driver side fender? I would agree, I kinda need it to pivot, the front at bib up, rear at cowl down. That’s just a limited amount of rotation with the slotted mounts. I tried lifting the fender with a jack under the front market light and cracked my new paint. So…not doing that again

Do you have anything under the bib hinge? From the factory there was a piece of canvas strap as a body mount. I used 3/16” HDPE. You can shim it more if needed.

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

Do you have anything under the bib hinge? From the factory there was a piece of canvas strap as a body mount. I used 3/16” HDPE. You can shim it more if needed.

Yes I have a 3/16 polyethylene spacer

 

[pb4ugo]

The way I looked at it was the tub was positioned and squared to the frame at the factory and imo the frt end parts were adjusted to it. The only fixed item actually attached the the tub is the hood, which has some adjustment along with the bib. The frt dog house moves around as the front of the frame flexes, the hood doesn't move. Trying to get the hood to cowl gap prefect probably isn't going to happen. My gap going across the top of the cowl is great, but the vertical gap opens up slightly and is adjusted with the bib. At 1st I thought i need shims under the hinge. I made sure I accounted for the rubber bumper strips on top of the bib. Are your fenders oem or aftermarket? I used nos fenders from Patrick (dieselbj42). They just fit with some adjustment at the frame mounts.

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

The way I looked at it was the tub was positioned and squared to the frame at the factory and imo the frt end parts were adjusted to it. The only fixed item actually attached the the tub is the hood, which has some adjustment along with the bib. The frt dog house moves around as the front of the frame flexes, the hood doesn't move. Trying to get the hood to cowl gap prefect probably isn't going to happen. My gap going across the top of the cowl is great, but the vertical gap opens up slightly and is adjusted with the bib. At 1st I thought i need shims under the hinge. I made sure I accounted for the rubber bumper strips on top of the bib. Are your fenders oem or aftermarket? I used nos fenders from Patrick (dieselbj42). They just fit with some adjustment at the frame mounts.

Thanks for the info! I have no idea if they are factory. There was a good amount of rust to I’m thinking factory…I’ll try to align the bib and hood today and see how close I can get the fenders.

 

[pb4ugo]

I think in one of the links I posted folks mentioned for the tub placement, one of the considerations was looking at the relationship of the rear of the tub and the rear crossmember. They also talk about the door opening measurements at the top and bottom and the comparison between left and right too. I've seen tubs that the sheet metal was bulged near the bottom of the A pillar, which would be an indication that the frt body mount height may be off. Folks evidently has shimmed the frt body mount to get some height.

 

[zerotreedelta]

I had good luck using a padded "post" against the blinker tab and a *gentle* usage of a floor jack to lift the fender noses to get aligned before snugging down, especially working solo...does look like your fronts are low, creating the underbite and dropping hood line.

I did need to add a shim under my bib hinge to get a nice hood line on mine...the front clip is a smorgasbord of tradeoffs. I aimed to have the best lines against the cowl and at the bib, and took my losses by raising the bib a smidge at the hinge. It's similar with the tub - in theory, raising the rear a bit would thusly lower the bib point, but then it's a tradeoff through the middle on all the body mounts. In the same way, I traded a cleaner rear body line and overall body-mount alignment for the bib shim.

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

Good thoughts! I might shave the front mounts down a bit. It seems like due to the fender slots where they mount to the frame I just can’t go any higher. When I got it, the body mounts were toast, no bushing under the bib. Maybe I need to go more than 3/16 under the hinge. Looking at pre restoration photos the driver side apron had a big gap, 1” under bite on the hood.

 

[zerotreedelta]

Yupper...I ended up 3D printing a black poly shim for mine, and it ended up about 1/2" give or take. Definitely correct though, you might be able to shave the center mounts to get a nose-drop instead.

 

[Mr. Green]

Posting my situation. I believe slotting fender bracket is my solution after 4 separate attempts.
Below is bolted fender all loose fitting and adjusted to best fit.
Holes with CL marked are targeted slots I think will work.

 

[Mr. Green]

Here is unbolted fender and fit to tub and bib:

 

[zerotreedelta]

Are those aftermarket fenders? If so, not too surprised - had to do similar with mine, seemed like they weren't overly precise on alignment of that brace when spot welding. I was half tempted to pop the welds and shuffle it.

 

[Mr. Green]

OEM from Patrick.

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

Posting my situation. I believe slotting fender bracket is my solution after 4 separate attempts.
Below is bolted fender all loose fitting and adjusted to best fit.
Holes with CL marked are targeted slots I think will work.

View attachment 3903642View attachment 3903643View attachment 3903644

Looks like we’re in the same boat.
I bought some large 1/16 rubber washers today. I’m going to use them as shims on the body mounts plus shave the front mount and see if I can get a better cowl/fender line.

Definitely one of the top most frustrating periods of this rebuild. I hate scratching my newly painted body panels attempting to get correct fitment

 

[-MaTTi-]

I found best method to get them lined ok:
•bolt the fender loosely to the frame
•bolt the fender to the tub
•bolt loosely the upper part to the fender (find all bolt holes)
•push it at place, and then tight the fender to the frame

Mine looked like that first too:

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

I think I’m going to live with this.
Removed 1/16 from driver front body mount
Added 1/16 shim plate under bib hinge
Unbolted everything and shimmied the tub forward a smidge. Compared to how it was when I bought it. Victory!

I was also having issues with the driver apron sticking out. The inner mount was as far in as it could go. So I added double stacked washers at the two bottom bolts on the fender mount, between the mount and frame to help lean it inward

 

[Stevens79FJ40]

Motivation restored

 

[Chungas Revenge]

I found best method to get them lined ok:
•bolt the fender loosely to the frame
•bolt the fender to the tub
•bolt loosely the upper part to the fender (find all bolt holes)
•push it at place, and then tight the fender to the frame

Mine looked like that first too:

I think I’m going to live with this.
Removed 1/16 from driver front body mount
Added 1/16 shim plate under bib hinge
Unbolted everything and shimmied the tub forward a smidge. Compared to how it was when I bought it. Victory!

I was also having issues with the driver apron sticking out. The inner mount was as far in as it could go. So I added double stacked washers at the two bottom bolts on the fender mount, between the mount and frame to help lean it inward

Doesn’t hurt to sacrifice a chicken under a blood moon on an Tuesday after the vernal equinox.

Makes you wonder how Toyota pulled it off via a modern assembly line.

 

[zerotreedelta]

Doesn’t hurt to sacrifice a chicken under a blood moon on an Tuesday after the vernal equinox.

Makes you wonder how Toyota pulled it off via a modern assembly line.

Kind of looks like they had a jig, and it let them assemble the bib, fenders, and apron together for painting. The hood was also somehow pre-aligned the cowl for paint as well. I guess in theory, if you had a few people, you could then unbolt that assembly, and slide it on to the frame in one piece to align with the hood.

Having argued with assembly, I could see that helping in some regards. I also suspect we're a bit more particular about the panel gaps.

Starts at 4:30: