Front clip/fender alignment

[MarkS]

Looking for help resolving front fender alignment on a 87.

My problem appears to be the fender alignment causing an uneven gap across the front of the hood and the grille trim. And the grille chrome itself is out of line. I think it's all original steel with some paint work on the passenger fender. This truck had rust treatment when new so I don't think the fender was removed. I attached some pics of the issue. My question is this a fender aligment or is there some adjustment in the front radiator support. What's the best approach to fix? I'm not "body" guy so any help is appreciated.

[Captkaos]

Typical tolerances for that year.  If you want the hood to grill gap to improve, you would have to "persude" it.

[MarkS]

The hood gap across the front doesn't bother me as much as the side grill chrome doesn't follow the curve of the upper chrome... if that makes sense? I can tell the radiator support lines up consistent with the misalignment, i.e. the fender on the right is higher and farther back on the support.

When you say persuasion, where do you start. Do you work from both fenders adjusting (moving, shimming) till you get what you're looking for or is the any "persuasion" room in the support itself. I haven't taken it all down to see where there's room for adjustment.

[CeeTen]

Typical tolerances for that year.

Man you aint kidding! Never really noticed it until I started tearing mine down. It looks like the roof skin is about 3/16th off to one side. The rockers are off too. I don't suppose build quality was top priority in the mid 80's

[SUX2BU99]

Tell me about it. I've been meaning to try and fix my gaps for 5 years now. It really bugs me but I get a little (little) solice knowing that's more or less how these trucks came from the factory! Looking at the factory photos on how a cab was constructed, I can kind of understand why!

[Captkaos]

It really depends on what you can't "work" out.  You could hit the lip on the core support header to knock it in and down, but...

[MarkS]

Thanks Chris... I'm going to take a shot to at least improve the condition. My problem is I'm just a little too much of a perfectionist.

I'll keep everyone posted.

[Captkaos]

Keep in mind my advice is coming from looking at a picture and I don't know what you have tried up to this point to align everything.  I would check for squareness also. 

[MarkS]

Agreed. I know the pics don't show the whole picture.... pardon the pun.

I'm going to break it down a bit (remove the bumper, grille, and chrome, etc... to get a better look myself. I'll post some pics before I do anything drastic. As you suggested, pounding the support doesn't always produce the best results. Someone did that on my 67. It helped lined up the clip okay but left some obvious undesired hammer marks.