tighening up the gaps

Just make all your gaps even as possible.

I'm not a body man and even I figured this out. You can't just "choose" to "tighten up" gaps, it depends on the CAR. The doors have to fit, the hood has to fit the cowl, and the fenders have to average out between the hood and doors.

That is, if the cowl won't allow the hood "back far enough" you can't move the fenders back to tighten up the door gaps because then the hood will stick out.

Some of these cars had terrible tolerances.

Back then, "we didn't care."