Thread: New Member with questions

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Texascuda---I've been lurking, watching your posts as they came up. I am a veteran of a few "fiberglass wars", and have a fair bit (about 40 years) of experience with hotrods. Putting glass fenders on a car that has a reproduction frame is quite a puzzle, as there are no preexisting "holes" to line things up with. To get things in the correct place, on a car which already has the body mounted in place, it actually starts with the hood. WHAT???
Well, yeah, the hood. Here's how it works----The hood (if you have one) is a done deal, lengthwise. So---you start by dummying the hood into place, with a proper gap at the rear of the hood, between it and the matching body reveal or cowl-front. This determines where your grillshell should go in terms of forewards/backwards. If you have hoodsides, thats really good, because that will determine the angle that the grillshell should set at. If you don't have hoodsides, then your going to have to find a similar car and get a measurement of the angle the grillshell sets at. With the grillshell located, that determines where the "chinpan" (thats the part under the grillshell) goes. I am not sure if your year of car has one, or if the fenders bolt directly to the grillshell. On my model A, the fenders bolt to the "chin-pan". Either way, thats what locates the position that your front fenders should be in "frontwards/backwards". The rear fenders are fairly easy to locate, (or should be) because the sides of the body at the rear will have an indentation that the fenders mate up to----HERE'S WHERE YOU REALLY HOPE THAT WHOEVER BUILT THE CAR POSITIONED THE BODY SO THAT THE REAR WHEELWELLS LINE UP CORRECTLY WITH THE REAR AXLE AND TIRES!!! Now all you have to figure out is the correct rotational aspect of the rear fenders.----And that is determined by the running boards. I'm not sure if the 34 Ford has splash aprons between the running boards and the underside of the body or not---I am assuming NOT, as the 32 Fords didn't have them. Bolt the front of the running board to the trailing edge of the front fender, dummy it into a position that looks good (generally parallel to the underside of the body, and thats what deermines the rotational aspect of the rear fenders. Drill holes about 8" apart thru the rear fender flanges and body all around the fender flanges, and thru the mating surfaces of all the other fiberglass mating parts, I use a 5/16" diameter drill. Use 1/4" diameter hex head bolts x about 1" long, with a large flatwasher under the head of the bolt and under the nut---use nylock nuts, as you can't really put enough torque on the bolts to make a regular lockwasher work, without cracking the fiberglass. On the front fender inner flange that sets on top of the frame, I generally drill thru the fender flange and the top of the frame-rail at the same time with a 3/16" diameter drill, then open out the holes (in the fiberglass only) with a 5/16" drill, and I tap the top of the frame 1/4"-20. I use 2" x 1/8" fabric welting between the underside of the front fender mating surface and the top of the frame. If you want to spend a lot of time screwing around with polyester filler, you can make all the mating surfaces fit each other perfectly (thats what I did on my roadster pickup), or you can purchase vinyl fender welting which acts as a cushion and a "gap hider" between the mating fiberglass surfaces. If your running boards don't fit perfectly between the front and rear fenders, you may be able to tweak the angle of the grillshell a bit at the bottom to move the front fenders slightly forewards or backwards to give a perfect fit.---Hope this helps----Brian

Brian, thanks for the input.

I have a 4 pc steel hood with steel running boards, I'm also thinking that I will need to find a smaller set of tires for the rear as they are 31x16.5x15.

I did hook up with some fellow street rodders here in Dallas, I'm going to pay my dues and help them with a another fellows car they are working on, I hope to pic there brains for all the info I can. Did start to get a handle on the wiring so I not so freaked out about it now. I hope to make some progress this weekend on the wiring.

I will keep updates as I go, and again I want to thanks everyones input as I'm really new at this but love it.

Regards,

Steve

Well I tracked down the original builder of my project, got some good info, however it has been 15yrs since this guy started this project. Got most of the wiring figured out and now working on a new shifter install. Hope to put power to it in a few weeks to see what works and what has problems.


Regards'

Steve

Well this past weekend I cut the hump out for the new shifter got it installed. Moved on to the wiring, hooked up the battery and had, lights, doors, head lights & tail lights, R & L turn signals, no power to windows, all gauges worked.

looked over the windows and found the the switch wasn't grounded, fixed now I have windows, no brake lights but that's due to no brake light switch hooked up. So I making slow but good progress. I hope to get all electrical done this week and start going over the wiring for the motor.

Regards,

Steve

Slow down Steve, you are making the rest of us look bad.


Don

You know how newbies are, I get home change and go out to the garage, then about 10pm I think about dinner, man I got it bad....

Steve