Rear wing/fender fitment XK150

I am about to have the XK150 sprayed. The bodywork and prep work have been completed to a fairly high standard. However, the person doing the paint has pointed out that the gap at the tail end of the rear fenders (wings) are too tight to allow the sealing strip to fit and will need some metal work. Both sides are the same and the forward gap is adequate (The strip is ex SNG Barratt and is colored). The seal has a beaded edge which sits in a grove – which disappears towards the rear.

Has anyone had this problem and if so how was it resolved?
Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks

The beading has a 1 inch tounge which slips in between the body and fender, its only 1/16 thick.
Or am I missing something here, can you send a picture.

Yes, you are correct. Unfortunately, the car is at the shop so I do not have pictures. From memory with the fender bolted up but no beading installed you can see a space into which the beading’s bulb-end locates. At the rear section of the fender a section aprox. 8 inches long fits hard against the body leaving no gap. The beading would therefore stand proud at this point.
Regards
Mike

Suggest you do a trial run with a strip of beading just to see if there will be a problem . I show a pic of my 150 beading .

It would be a very good idea to visit the shop and take a number of good quality pictures of the area from multiple angles and post them. There are some very talented people on this forum who can then advise you.

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I received this from my body work guy, who has extensive experience with hard winning XKs

'That is completely normal for the hand/made car… where certain sections of fit are looser/tighter than elsewhere… the beading WILL fit, but you will have to physically “ wrestle “ the gap that you want… it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have to use a (padded) pry-bar to move the fender in the direction that you want… it was also normal to have small sheet-metal screws helping with the wing attachment between the big bolts. The difficulty of re drilling these little screw holes is there is a painted surface 1/2inch on the backside of your drill-bit… a quick way to ruin a new paint job"

Thanks for the pictures

I agree with your body man, you will find that some areas with the beading will be tight and others snug, the bigger the washer underneath will help to spread the pressure.
Even though the cars had wings and other bits installed by hand they are still classed as a mass produced car and not hand built, so there will be some cars made on a Monday morning which will differ from Friday afternoon cars.
Cheers