How can I fix this gap?

[PaulRSchmidt]

I’ve got this 1/4” gap, mainly towards the passenger side. It wasn’t evident before I put on weatherstripping, and no, I didn’t put it on the arch across the back, just outboard of the trunk in the wheel wells.
The body seems to be hanging up on the corner of the passenger rear wall above the door latch tab. If I trim up in there, that side will end up slightly lower than the driver side. I’m not sure it’ll be noticeable, am I overthinking this?

193360

[Jeff Kleiner]

Body may need to come forward. Show us a photo of the body relationship with the door latch tab.

Jeff

[PaulRSchmidt]

Hopefully these are good enough:

193361193362

[Al_C]

My 2 cents: 1. do what Jeff tells you. 2. if you still have a gap (i.e. no carpet), first, paint the uncarpeted area black. any black paint will do. Next, glue a piece of carpeting into the open area and "cut" it into the current carpet, much as you would do for a seam on a floor carpet. If you can, try to match the grain of the carpet. The black paint will ensure that even if your seam is less than perfect, you won't notice it. As this area of carpeting doesn't get much abuse, the glued in "patch" should be mostly invisible and won't separate. Hope this helps.

[PaulRSchmidt]

1. Yes
2. Unfortunately, that’s not uncarpeted metal, it’s a gap.

[Jeff Kleiner]

Looks OK at the striker tabs. Are the rocker panels wrapped all the way under the chassis tubes and pushed inward? Can't tell by the photo but is the top of the aluminum panel catching touching the body roll at the rear of the cockpit opening? It's not uncommon to need to trim that roll back so that the body is clear to drop over the top of the rear wall. By the way, a good way to "nudge" the body forward to get it to go over the top of the back wall is to stick the straight rear leg of the roll bar down through the cutouts and engage the chassis stubs by about a half inch and then use it to lever the body to the front.

Jeff

[egchewy79]

1. Yes
2. Unfortunately, that’s not uncarpeted metal, it’s a gap.

yeah, body's not sitting down far enough. is the bulb seal firmly pushed onto the aluminum side panels?
like jeff said, check to make sure the rockers are pulled out and under the frame.

[PaulRSchmidt]

The rocker panels are as far inward as they can go, they’re contacting the frame rails. The body is far enough forward such that the roll there clears the aluminum panel.

It turns out that I can fairly easily push down on the top of the panel to close the gap. Is there a way to get the fiberglass to re-form somehow? Weight and a heat gun?

[rich grsc]

I never trim the back carpet to the shape of the aluminum, always leave stick up just above the metal. Same for the covering on the dash, leave it long. It can always be folded over. Should have seen that when you did the 1st body fit.

[PaulRSchmidt]

It wasn’t there when I fit the body w/o the weatherstripping.

[PaulRSchmidt]

The body is not hanging up on the rear cockpit wall; I can push the aluminum inward. It looks like it’s hanging up on the door latch tab. I’m going to grind 1/8 or so off that corner and see what happens.193497

[egchewy79]

I think it's usually the rear trunk vertical aluminum panels that might need to be trimmed a bit, especially if you're needing to drop the height. Look in the trunk and see if you can tell which part is touching the body. you can also remove the bulb seal on those vertical panels, refit the body and look in the trunk, marking the panel locations that are too close to the underside of the body.

[PaulRSchmidt]

I pulled the weatherstripping off the entire right side, and the whole body was basically floating in air between the quickjack bolt and that tab.