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For those who have pulled out their original radiator support...did they find the spacing between the base of the support and the frame to be different from frame rail to frame rail?
The support in this truck was clearly original, yet the number of washers between the left and right rail were considerably different. The entire 'look' of the truck when together was fine. The modern rubber bushings and spacers from Carpenter make no allowance for individual stacking of washers. It's more like a solid tube. I could always source washers and replace the Carpenter tube with them to get it back to the original. Really more curious than anything.
I only have a pic of the passenger side rail below. But imagine the driver side rail having a stack of washers about half what you see here. The total difference between the two was 1/4". Maybe it was just sloppiness by someone on the assembly line.
I would consider that normal. Ford was stamping trucks out close to million a year couple of years. All that sheet metal stamping had variances and stack ups. Front end was assembled somewhere as an assembly and brought to the line to meet with cab and drive train. The shims would help take up tolerance for fit and appearance. It's kind of a price point customer acceptance thing. Watch some early ford assembly plant videos. Not just the glorified later ones. Imagine going to work and bolting a front clip on in 60 seconds, every minute, every hour, everyday. Clock running countdown till end of shift, line stops, the clock stops. A few shims are all production has time for.
Had to replace radiator support on a 95 I owned for a while. Had 14 shims on one side and 4 on the other, all factory shims. Thats why those factory bolts are so long.
those are really interesting points. i guess the only thing that i would be left scratching my head about is figuring out how much shimming would be necessary as you assemble in a factory environment.
as for me, i guess I just have to leave this stuff all loose as I build it back up and then figure something out on the fly if one side ends up looking lower than the other. I had assumed the issue would be coming from uneven rails, but that doesn't really make sense given their design and i'm sure jigs. your sheet metal assumption does however, given the gauge. thanks.
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