Body panel spacing. How big is too big?

This is the gap problem that I was talking about in other threads. I may have mentioned it to you in PM at some point.

I had this issue with the Scamp and I managed to get a tighter door gap as well as hood gap by changing the leg of the fender, at the top side, where it meets the cowl.

I traced the curved body line on the top rear of the fender with a sharpie and used the traced line that I brought outward as a guideline to roll the edge of the fender in with a hammer and dolly. If you place the dolly on the top of the fender and strike the edge with a curved face hammer, like a ball peen or a dinging/ skinning hammer, sideways (bondo makes a cheap one), it can be done with minimal or no filler work.

The key is the heel or common dolly on top of the fender, just outside of your guide line, to keep the fender skin from coming up, when you open up that gap. I had to trim a little bit of extra metal off of the bottom on the inside, after I was finished.

The gaps look even, now, because I corrected the tight gap from the fender to cowl. This will remedy your hood to cowl gap issue and make the rear arch of the hood match the fender as well as the cowl, so you have one even line going around the cowl.

Get the hood where you want it against the cowl, first. Take the fenders off and get the hood exactly how you like it against the cowl, then adjust the gaps on the top rear of the fenders with your hammer and dolly so they look good with the cowl to hood gap, when each fender matches the front of the hood, perfectly. If you do this correctly, you should have nice door gaps, too. You may have to adjust the entire front clip forward or backward, depending on how your door gaps look, but do it all to the hood.

I put the doors on, first. I hung them with all of the gear in them, so they swung nicely, after rebuilding the hinges with new bushings and I put seam sealer back on them, before installing the hinges, after I primed the jambs. Once I got the door to quarter and rocker gap perfect with the striker off, I put the strikers in and got the door to latch nice and easy. I did this without any weatherstrip in the door. The new weatherstrip will be difficult for a week or so, but it relaxes. Just be sure to hear two clicks on the latch and pull the door out when checking the adjustment after it latches, to simulate the tension from the weatherstrip.

Then I put the hood on and adjusted the fenders to fit the hood and the doors, last.