Fitting the front grills. making sure they are parallel with the bumper. I bended the bottom side of the fenders so they match the grills better.
You may find that when the headlight assembly is back in that you could have to move the bumperettes etc in the front as they interfere with the headlights moving parts and your headlight won't go down all the way.
Before I decided to paint my car I aligned all the front chrome and grills and the bumperettes making them appear tight etc only to discover there has to be space between them or the headlights cannot lower all the way.
I know what you mean demonx. The parts fit on these cars are shocking and when you try rectify one thing it stuffs something else up.
I read somewhere that when rebuilding one of these cars you should mount the bumper first and build the car around it. Not a truer word could be said when it comes to mounting the grills and bumperettes.
Having said that I mounted the bumper straight and a even distance from the body. I made sure the ends of the bumper that wrap around the fender where sitting level as well and not tilted up or down.
I then mounted the grills so they where parallel with the bumper. The trouble started when I tried mounting the bumperettes. If I had them flush with the bottom of the bumper then the inner ends of the grills tilted up (and look like crap). If I adjusted the bumperettes down so that the grills where parallel with the bumper again there would be about 3/8" gap between the top of the bumperette and the bottom of the bumper.
I am also having issues with how the bottom of the bumperettes sit against the fibreglass spoiler. They dont seem to sit flat and they also stick out abit more then the grills.
I plan on doing a bit of rework on the bumperettes. The bottom can be trimmed to sit flush on the fibreglass and this should also bring the bumperette and grill more inline. For the top I am thinking about forming a strip of steel and tig welding it in. This can then be trimmed to sit flush with the bumper.
The rear edge of my bumpers are also as rough as guts so I am going to clean these up and then send the whole lot for rechroming.
When I finish colour sanding the car I will be installing the headlight units so I will check for any issues with the lights and bumper/ettes then.