Well ever since I bought my truck, my grille has been shifted to one side more than the other. It's obvious people have had it out before working on it. Are there adjustments for it? here are some pictures of what I'm talking about. I've seen other trucks with the same alignment issue.









I have also noticed, the passenger side the grille sticks out a little farther than the drivers side.

 

They let them leave the factory with that much difference. American car manufacturers are known for their poor fit and finish, especially back in those days.

But you can play with it if you like. Loosen the driver's side fender and see if you can push it in. That will close up the crack to the hood, but you can then loosen the hood and shift it to the pass side to even up the crack on either side of the hood. And then you might have to adjust the hood latch a little bit.

It can take a lot of time and fiddling to get it perfect.

 

I know the hood is in the right spot because the body lines on top of the hood line up perfectly with the cowl up by the windshield. I need to take a ruler, but I think I could get it closer if I widened the passenger side gap a hair and closed the drivers side gap a hair.

 

There you go. Now you are thinking. Lots of ways to get the same result. You may need to study it for awhile, you don't have a good shot of the grill to hood on the pass side, but see how the hood looks compared to the grille ends. A little bit of hood adjustment will go a long way on the front of the hood, and not mess up your rear hood fit. Also, I do not know now much slop is in the cowl piece, but if there is any you could fudge that to help the crack at the back of the hood. It just slips under the chrome on the bottom of the windshield, and then has screws on the front part.

 

Not much slop on most cowls as the slots are very short. As for the fenders, in my experience when they are adjusted as far in as they can go they are about 1/4" wider than the hood. So you have to either adjust the hood so it is centered between the fenders or move the core support, which moves the fenders.

 

I wasn't aware that you can move the core support. But I think that's my main problem. My drivers fender as it nears the front of the truck the gap gets slightly wider, and the passenger side as the fender nears the front of the truck the gap gets slightly narrower.

 

If you like where your hood is then you can move the core support which will shift the fenders as well. BUT, that won't change the alignment of the headlight bezels and grill with respect to the fenders. There is basically no adjustment of the bezels and grill on the core support as the screw holes aren't slotted. However, you can move the Tinnerman nuts a bit, but not very much. So if the problem is with the fender/bezel alignment you have to move the fenders.

 

I think the grille is in it's correct spot, it's the fenders being off which is causing the issue. What all do I have to loosen to move the core support? just the two big bolts for it?

 

In theory, just the two big nuts. But there are something like 16 fasteners holding the fenders to the core support, so they really should be loosened to allow things to slide rather than bind

 

16 fasteners per fender? or for both?

 

From my post in Rusty's thread:

2 large ones for the frame mount
8 for the two core support-to-fender brackets
2 for the passenger's side inner fender support
4 for the fender-to-core support tabs

You might get by loosening the two on each side that hold the fender's corner brace to the core support. The brace, or L-bracket, is the piece with the screw-in hood stop in it. Loosen two on each side as well as the large nuts holding the core supports to the frame and try to move everything sideways a bit.