Body Issue/questions

[Souleman]

I have a couple questions for the brain trust.

I recently got the body on my MKIV. The doors have been challenging to say the least. It doesn't appear FF5 left enough material on the bottom of them as the gap is larger than I'd like if the tops are lined up nicely. Also, I can't pull the driver's side lower rear body corner out far enough to get the aft lower door area to sit flush. The intent is to leave it for now, drive it over the summer and let the body settle in a bit. Hopefully in the fall I can make a couple of tweaks to get the doors closer and get it to a bodyshop for final finishing and paint.

The larger issue is the exhaust cut outs. Neither precut exhaust hole lines up very nicely, even using the ball adjustment piece. The passenger side precut hole seemed a little forward of where it needed to be. I widened it slightly aft and the exhaust went on nicely. As I started to go work on the driver's side I noticed there's no real room to widen the precut hole. As it sits, the driver's side precut hole is slightly too far aft, but there's not much ability to widen it forward as you run into the fender flare very quickly, and you couldn't go farther aft if you wanted to as it's already against the foot well. And then the bad idea fairy hit...one side is a little aft with the other a little forward...hmmm...maybe the engine needs a little "twist". I've got about 30'ish miles on it, and the driveline appeared set up well before the body went on. There's only a little room to move it in the mounts, but there's a little. I'm not sure it would make a difference or is even worth the effort, so before I go down the engine path I was curious if anyone else had a similar issue?

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[gbranham]

Even a small adjustment of the engine will make a substantial difference in exhaust alignment.

Greg

[rich grsc]

Agree, loosen the engine mounts, and swing the transmission a 1/4" will make a big difference at the headers.

[Jeff Kleiner]

For the cutouts I agree that rolling it in the chassis mounts and/or swinging the tail a bit can make a substantial difference. If that and adjusting the ball flange still doesn't get the results you want you'll have to resort to wedges. I've had to do that a few times even with the adjustable ball flange. Remember too that the FFR cutouts are only a starting point and you'll have to do some trimming.

On the driver's side door; push the rocker panel all the way in against the chassis at the front of the door then pull it outward 1/2" to 3/4" just in front of the rear wheel. With that you should be able to make adjustments to the door to get it flush at both the front and rear lower edges. The top of the door at the leading edge will not flush with the body...the radius of the two are different. That's where bodywork comes in. Also at the lower edge which is often overcut. My method is to make the hole smaller by building in the body rather than trying to add material to the door edge.

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Jeff

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[Rebostar]

On the exhaust I made sure the body door inner lip was 1/4 " in front of the latch plate, then locked in place with the "Kleiner Mod" on the rear attach points. I still had to open up the "FFR cuts" quite a bit. I think I had to go all the way to the edge of the flair. Even then with the "ball mount" I had to use a couple Breeze shims on the drivers side. On mine the pax side as way off and had to use 3 large shims and an inch of body trimming. I laid out the pipes where I wanted them so I could figure out how many shims would align the pipes, just fill in the gaps! I could not "swing the engine" without grinding out the mount slots, as the pins were tight in the slots and the entire drive line was in and secure.

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[Rebostar]

On the door issue, I did as Jeff suggested pinning in the front lower and pulling out the rear lower of the body as much as possible then bolting them in place. After mounting the door I fiddled with it for a few hours to find a position with the least amount of filling required. I ended up setting the lower rear portion flush with the gap I wanted and started from there. I had to fill in the upper body area above the latch and quite a bit on the forward end. The middle was flush but top and bottom needed filling. On the door you can see I added quite a bit to the front side. All this took about a week, but was worth the effort. Pax door took about half as much work, so I did that one first per FK to "study up"!

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[Souleman]

I appreciate the feed back guys! Just wanted to check in before I did something dumb. This forum is a treasure trove of knowledge...and why I chose FFR. Thanks again for the help.