68 Charger rear valance trunk bumper supports alignment issue with pictures

[khunter68]

Hello Guys been working on my 68 charger. Ive got an issue I hope someone can shed some light on. Replacing the right Quarter skin "Not complete Quarter. Also the rear valance and trunk floor trunk extension, Grafting a piece on the outer wheelhouse as well. Been test fitting the parts and I ca get everything lined up pretty good except when I lay the Bumper support brackets on the new trunk floor the holes are not lining up with the holes on the rear valance. They are probably about 3/4 of an inch too high. Doesnt appear that the quarter is sagging down so im thinking maybe the frame is a little high or I need to roll down the back of the trunk floor down a bit. Anyone experience?Thanks Guys..

[fy469rtse]

where have you got car suported, not under the rear portion of rails ? move stands up forward to near front spring hangers,
possible body weight of car pushing down on it and not helping with alignment issues, more photos of slightly underneath please,
how does bottom lip of valance sit on bottm of inner suport brace ?
dont make that rear valance fit cnrs , there wrong , look up threads on previous resto's on hear, to see what i had to do and others,

[fy469rtse]

come back with a couple more photo's so we can help , mitch on here the most recent i can think off , green69rt i think, thats done this area,
rear valance looks like it needs to go up and from the look of it your trying to push floor down , thats making it worse,
your trying to align top and bottom together,

[khunter68]

Hello old timer, thanks for the quick response the pictures are probably misleading if your looking at the jack thats under the other side rear quarter panel I juts put that in place for support before i totally removed the rear valence. the car is supported by jack stands under the rear axel in the rear and the a frame in the front as ive always gone by the car should be supported as it would if sitting on the tires. Bottom lip when pulled forward seems to line up like others that I have seen. Ill try to get some more pics tommorrow as its dark here now. Not sure what you mean about rear valance fitting corners? If your talking about the quarter panels being short they are and ill be doing the pie cut to fill the gap. Appreciate the help..

[green69rt]

I was looking at my old thread, IIRC those bumper brackets that mount on the inside of the floor took some massaging to make work right.  It's a sad thing to say but between the poor quality of the initial assembly, years of life on the road with unknown repairs and the way these cars were treated it's wonder that anything fits like it should.  All I can say is the specs on these cars seem to say everything should fit within 1/4",  that seems a big gap on todays cars.

For your problem, I would get the bumper out and mount it up and see if you can figure out where the holes SHOULD be.  Also just set back and look at the various parts of the rear end.  You may see other big gaps or misalignment's that will lead you to where the problem is.  Sorry I can be of more help.   If you look at the various pictures of Chargers you will see that bumper fit up all over the place, some look good and some are obviously off.  Most people don't notice unless it's gross.  For a start you really need the FSM which has the body measurements that can help but remember the tolerances are plus or minus 1/4".

Most important thing is to make sure the frame measurements are correct (trust me on this!!)

[green69rt]

A note on the Valence corners, I saw a note (I think from CDR) about fitting them.  He attached the corners to the quarters FIRST then made it fit in all other places (valence, rear cross member.)  They went right in with no mods to the corners.

Here's the quote from his thread.."3rd is the lower 1/4 end caps,seems they dont fit,everyone slices them & adds metal at the cap to 1/4 seam,well my car was untouched in this area & what i found is,the factory welded the cap on the 1/4 before installing it,then hang the panel,then to get the cap fit correct they would twist the end of the rear cross member,right where the end cap welds on,most people have to replace this cross member & they are straight & their original was rusted & gone & did not know that the ends had been hit in or twisted from the factory on MOST cars .no slicing on mine,they fit great."

Here's the thread..http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,90903.475.html

The quote is on page 20.

[khunter68]

Hey 69greenrt I appreciate the input, I think is see what my problem is, I have the car supported under the rear axel on the car and the leaf springs are still on, I think because of the tension of the leaf springs pushing up on the rear frame rails is the reason why the trunk floor is too high and not aligning with the holes on the rear valance. I see from your thread you replaced the rear rails and it looks like you have your car supported on wood blocks under the frame.. Did you put together the back of the car with the leaf springs off of the car?

[green69rt]

Hey 69greenrt I appreciate the input, I think is see what my problem is, I have the car supported under the rear axel on the car and the leaf springs are still on, I think because of the tension of the leaf springs pushing up on the rear frame rails is the reason why the trunk floor is too high and not aligning with the holes on the rear valance. I see from your thread you replaced the rear rails and it looks like you have your car supported on wood blocks under the frame.. Did you put together the back of the car with the leaf springs off of the car?

Yes, the springs where gone and my supports were under the FRONT leaf spring hangers.  Still took a  little adjustment to the fender brackets but nothing big like yours showed.